


Mind Over Matter (Hearts Over Minds)

by NuMo



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Dub-Con and its fallout, F/F, Trans Female Character, much more angst&pain though, my spin on A/B/O
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:40:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 47,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23808541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuMo/pseuds/NuMo
Summary: Darlings! Happy 10th Bering & Wells Day!This is my contribution to it - it seems I'm diving head-first into all kinds of left-field subject matters these days; in this one, I decided to give the Alpha-Omega thing a spin.Disclaimer 1: I haven't read a lot of these fics; this is a loose remix. It does involve: pheromones, pheromone-induced sex including knotting, mentions of bonding and marking, themes of dub-con are explored A LOT. One of the characters is a MTF trans Alpha; I hope I did them justice.Disclaimer 2: The sex described in here involves a penis (see MTF trans Alpha). Of course this is still a F/F fic, because trans women are women regardless of their genitals or hormone status or where they are in their transition etc etc. If you disagree, GTFO.As always, feedback is cherished!
Relationships: Myka Bering/Helena "H. G." Wells
Comments: 53
Kudos: 102





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you're here for the sexytimes, they're mentioned extremely briefly in Chapter 1, then Chapter 7 has a closer recollection of what preceded Chapter 1, and Chapter 17 is round 2, as it were (making this, I believe, the slowest burn I've ever written, if you disregard that they basically fucked right off the bat, but you'll see when you read this why that isn't any help whatsoever).

Myka groaned as she stretched. Then she looked around herself and frowned. And then she realized that one, she was naked, and two, someone was curled into her chest.

Realization slowly trickled into her brain and made her wince, even as the sensation of – Helena, her name was Helena – in her arms felt so, _so_ right.

Like nothing else had ever felt before. Like nothing she could rationally, logically explain. Like, something deep within her, something on a visceral level. 

Shit.

She had bonded with an Omega, hadn’t she.

Well, at the very least she’d slept with one, she amended, surreptitiously checking Helena’s shoulder – the one she could see without moving, anyway – for bite marks. She found none, and breathed a bit freer. 

“And what is that sigh for, then?” Helena, obviously awake, asked. 

Myka’s heart almost stopped, then re-started with a flutter. Helena’s voice was honey, no: whiskeyed honey, chili honey; sweet and amber, but with a little hint of sting, a promise of bite, a taste of danger. 

And she was from somewhere on the British Isles. Myka couldn’t have told one of those accents apart from the other, but what Helena spoke was pure Received Pronunciation (Myka knew that much, thank you very much), crisp and-

Sexy as hell. 

Myka groaned again, muttered a little under her breath. Then she raised her head to meet Helena’s eyes and, more clearly, said, “I am so, so sorry.”

Helena blinked, once, slowly. Fuck, she was beautiful – but how much of that was pheromones? That was the question, wasn’t it? “Whatever for, darling?” she asked.

Myka stared at her, at a loss for words. 

A minute smile appeared on Helena’s lips. “If anything, I have to apologize to _you_ , I should say,” she said. 

She raised herself slightly, and her hair – fuck, her _hair!_ – cascaded over Myka’s chest. Myka gritted her teeth, and missed Helena’s next words. “Hm?”

“I was wondering where we were,” Helena said, and her smile deepened into a smirk. 

She _had_ to know what she was doing to Myka, right? Did she- Myka’s thoughts desperately tried to go back to how this had all started. 

She’d been in the Warehouse, doing inventory with Pete. They’d been joking about Mata Hari’s Stockings, which Artie and Claudia had snagged and bagged the day before. One of the most powerful Omegas in recent history; no wonder she’d left an artifact behind. Pete had ribbed Myka to be extra careful; as if she needed telling.

Or had she? Because Myka felt pretty close now to how she did when she’d been whammied.

And she was in the _Pete Cave_ , for crying out loud, naked and in bed – shit, she _hoped_ Pete had changed the sheets before this, or at least, _please_ , recently – with an Omega who’d come out of nowhere.

Helena was still looking at her, and that smirk was growing ever deeper. Myka cleared her throat. “We’re in, um… my friend’s place,” she said. 

“And would that be _in_ the Warehouse, still, or outside of it?” Helena asked, and Myka panicked. 

“What? Wh- what do you mean, Warehouse?!”

Helena rolled her eyes. “The Warehouse,” she enunciated, with that crisp, sexy-as-fuck diction. “Which one is it now? Not still twelve – I don’t think Crowley would ever hire an American agent, much less a wo-” she stopped herself, and for the first time, insecurity flitted across her brow. “Excuse me,” she went on delicately. “I was assuming, and I should not. May I ask what you go by, please?”

Myka’s thoughts raced. Warehouse 12 had been in England. But it had moved in 1911, so how did this woman – or person, Myka belatedly thought, realizing that she, too, was assuming; not all people with vaginas, much less Omegas with vaginas, were female – speak of it so familiarly? And of genders? That hadn’t really been a thing in Victorian England, had it? Helena looked as though they were waiting for Myka to say something, and Myka reran their words in her mind. “Oh,” she said and blushed. “Yeah, I’m a woman.” And as usual, saying those words sent a little shudder through her, half relief, half wonder, all blessing, that someone wanted to know, took the care to ask, didn’t assume. 

She had a cock, after all. Not everyone was ready to acknowledge that some women had cocks, much less Alphas assigned male at birth. 

But Helena was talking, and Myka’s thoughts refocused, on what Helena was saying. “Thank you – so am I, in case you were wondering,” she added – not ironically, as some people might have, but sincerely enough to make Myka blush. “You have not answered my other question, though.”

Myka swallowed. “I don’t know if I should,” she said hesitantly. “I mean I have no idea who you are.”

Helena was biting her lips together, and her eyes were sparkling with mirth, and Myka knew, she just _knew_ , that Helena was holding back some comment or other about being naked in a bed together, or just having had hours, potentially days of Alpha-Omega sex, something along those lines. However, hold it back she did, and Myka was grateful for that. Then Helena’s face grew serious. “My name is Helena George Wells,” she said. “I believe you unbronzed me.”

“I what?” Myka had no idea what the woman was talking about.

Helena sighed. “Goodness,” she murmured, and sat up. “I must have affected you quite badly; I am ever so sorry. I hope you will forgive me – I will say, in my defense, that I only half-knew what I was doing, and was utterly unable to control it.”

Myka sat up too. An empty plastic bottle rolled off her side of the bed and joined – Myka’s eyes widened as she took it in – a veritable mound of other empty plastic bottles on the floor. 

They must have emptied Pete’s entire stash of energy drinks. No wonder that she was sore. Deliciously sore, and it was probably Helena’s doing that Myka hadn’t realized just _how_ sore she was until now, but fuck, she was _sore_.

Helena was looking at the mess with raised eyebrows and guilt in the eyes underneath. Her face became impassive, focused all inwards for a moment, and all of a sudden, Myka realized that she was, indeed, _extremely_ sore, _and_ cold, _and_ hungry, _and_ thirsty. 

Helena must have shut off her pheromones. 

Holy crap, they had to be strong. 

And holy crap, Helena was _still_ beautiful. The woman got up from the bed with astonishing grace for someone covered in – Myka flushed in hot embarrassment – fluids, and not a few bruises. Though her hands were shaking with the same exhaustion that Myka felt, she wrapped the sheet around herself in sure movements. “Would you give me a moment to find my clothes?” she asked, and Myka realized that she was still staring, and couldn’t even blame it on the pheromones. 

She practically flung her eyes away, to the bed, her hands, the stains – shit, the _stains_ – in her haste to give Helena some privacy. “Shit,” she breathed to herself, and, louder, said, “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, darl-” Helena stopped with a little intake of breath. “Apologies from my side,” she went on. “I should think endearments are not all that appropriate right now.”

Myka’s eyes were still fixed on the sheets, and on her fists balled into them. She did hear the contrition in Helena’s voice, and felt oddly sad about the prospect of no longer being called ‘darling’. Before she could say anything, though, Helena was talking again. 

“All back to proper attire,” she announced. “Apart from my blouse, I’m afraid, but the waistcoat is holding it decent enough.”

Myka swallowed as an image of her hands gripping and ripping came, unbidden, to the forefront of her mind. “Sorry,” she said again. A hand appeared in her field of vision, reached for her chin, bade her look up. 

“Don’t be, please,” Helena said. There was a resigned look in her eyes, and she lowered them immediately when they met Myka’s. “I am at fault. Please, do get dressed and allow me to show and explain to you what happened.” Then she turned away resolutely.

Myka touched the spot on her chin where Helena’s fingers had just been. They’d been cool, almost cold against her skin, and she wanted them back with a force that made her knees weak. She blinked. Helena had turned her pheromones off – why did she, Myka, still feel this yearning? Had they bonded after all? But Helena didn’t seem affected, and while, yes, there had been bruises, Myka hadn’t seen bite marks. 

Maybe that was part of why Helena seemed so subdued right now? Had she _wanted_ to bond? But they didn’t really know each other; why would she?

And suddenly, as if someone had twisted the lens on a camera, things came into a different focus for Myka. 

She didn’t remember what had happened to bring her and Helena here. 

_She did not remember._  
  
Her memory was impeccable – eidetic. 

It wasn’t always the blessing that some people called it to be; sometimes it was very much the opposite. But Myka had always been able to rely on it. _Always._ Throughout her childhood – and there had been plenty of occasions in her childhood that had been ‘opposite of blessing’ occasions – throughout college, pre-med, pre-law, Secret Service training; hell, throughout being _whammied_.

She did not remember anything about the last – whichever amount of time it was – beyond disjointed images, like strobe lights but far fewer. 

She-

Her ears rang thunderously. Why- 

What-

There was coolness on her shoulder, and words in her ear. “Breathe,” Helena was murmuring, and calm seemed to spread from her hand. 

Pheromones. Omega pheromones. Not sexual ones, but calming ones, and right now it made very little difference to Myka. 

She jerked her shoulder away. “Don’t,” she growled.

There was an intake of breath, and then Myka could feel Helena move away. “I’m sorry,” she heard her say. 

Myka sighed, running a hand over her face and through her curls. Her fingers got stuck halfway through, and she didn’t want to think too closely about why _that_ was, but at least the sharp tug brought her thoughts into clearer focus. “Just don’t do that again,” she said roughly. 

“I swear it,” came Helena’s immediate reply. From the sound of it, she had turned her back again.

Myka gritted her teeth and got up, carefully avoiding the mound of empty bottles (and chips bags and candy bar wrappers) as she found her clothes. The collar of her t-shirt was torn, but the rest was alright – she borrowed a pair of Pete’s boxers from his dresser drawer, though; hers were ruined. She very determinedly refrained from wondering about how Helena might have handled _her_ underwear situation; this was _not_ the time. No, this was the time to grab the sheets off the bed and wrap them into a big ball to take to the laundry later. She also made a mental note to re-stock Pete’s fridge ASAP; she didn’t even know if he knew that they – she and Helena – were here, but at the very least he shouldn’t have to suffer a complete loss of comestibles.

“Ready,” she said at long last, and straightened to look at Helena.

The other woman was holding herself, arms wrapped around her waist in a gesture that spoke of loneliness, of being lost. Myka even thought she caught a glimpse of that in Helena’s expression, but when Helena turned towards her, her face was composed and neutral. “Righty-ho, then,” Helena sighed, and let her arms fall loose. 

They left the Pete Cave, and Helena looked around herself. She inhaled deeply through her nose, then almost choked. “Bloody apples,” she murmured crossly. “ _Not now_.” Out loud and to Myka, she said, “We are in the Warehouse, then?”

They were standing in an aisle stacked thirty feet tall with motorcycle artifacts. Myka saw little point in denying that. “Yeah. Thirteen,” she added and watched as Helena sorted that fact away. 

“Ah. Which way to the Bronze Sector, then?”

“The what?”

Helena’s lips formed an ‘oh’. “This might be a bit complicated,” she said. 

“No,” a brusque voice said from the nearest intersection, “from where I stand, it’s pretty easy.” 

Artie walked into view, Tesla trained on Helena.


	2. Chapter 2

Helena had raised her hands immediately, and now had an almost resigned look on her face. “Allow me to explain, at least,” she said, speaking more to Myka than to Artie.

“Nope,” Artie snapped. “Not a word out of you. And don’t worry – I’m impervious to pheromones, so don’t even try.”

“I would never,” Helena said coldly. 

Artie raised his Tesla threateningly. “Last warning.”

Eyebrows raised as high as her hands, Helena very pointedly shut her mouth. 

Artie gestured with his weapon for her to pass him, then jerked his head at Myka. “Follow me.”

They headed to a section of the Warehouse that Myka could have sworn she’d never been in before – but it was familiar, in an odd sense. Déjà-vu, she suddenly realized – or at least she thought that that was what it was. She’d only ever heard the phenomenon described before; her brain didn’t work that way, side effect of eidetic memory.

“Oh,” Artie suddenly said, and dug in his pocket with his free hand. He tossed Myka a little bag of plastic. “Put that on. Trust me.”

Myka stared at the bag, tore it open, stared at the pheromone inhibitor mask. Put it on. “Do you really think that’s necessary?” she asked as she hurried to catch up with Artie and Helena again. 

“Do you remember coming this way? At all?” Artie asked in return.

Myka had to give him that one.

They rounded a corner and found themselves walking under an archway. In the center of a room full of oddly uniform-looking bronze statues, Helena turned around. Her face was still resigned, but Myka could see her jaw muscles work. Nevertheless, the woman said nothing; Artie still had his Tesla on her. 

Artie nodded his head sideways towards an open, phone-booth-sized tube that stood on a low pedestal at the back of the room. “Go on,” he said, “get back in there.”

A look of utter dread flashed through Helena’s eyes. She opened her mouth, he raised his weapon, she subsided – but Myka had seen that mouth tremble. Something wasn’t right, and it wasn’t pheromones whispering in her nostrils; she was wearing a mask, after all. “Artie, what-”

“She’s gonna go back into the Bronze and good riddance,” he spat. 

“What does that even mean?”

He ignored Myka, gesturing with the Tesla again. Stiffly, jerkily, Helena turned and stalked towards the tube. 

There were handles in there, Myka saw, that someone standing in the tube could grasp with their hands over their heads. 

And all the statues were frozen in just that pose. 

“Artie, wait,” Myka began, looking from those statues to Artie to the tube and a clearly terrified Helena. “Artie!”

“Not now, Agent Bering,” Artie snapped. 

A door began to swing shut on the tube, and Helena’s face lost its composure – she was frantic now, and Myka could not stand by and let that happen without knowing what the hell was going on. 

“I invoke the Alpha-Omega Bond Directive,” she snapped. 

Artie froze for a moment. Then he shook his head, without even looking at her. “No, you don’t,” he grated. The door hissed shut, and Helena’s face was a rictus of fear.

“Artie!” Myka yelled. She grabbed his shoulder and swung him around. “I fucking well invoke the Alpha-Omega Bond Directive, here and now, and _I will take you out_ if you touch those controls to do anything other than open that door again and let her out.”

“What is going on here, Arthur?” a measured voice came from behind both of them. 

If Myka hadn’t been staring Artie down, she would have sagged with relief. Mrs. Frederic.

Artie finally looked away and, with a derisive snort, punched a command into the controls. 

The door opened, and Myka rushed forwards to support Helena as Helena sagged out of the tube. “Are you alright?” she asked the other woman. 

Helena gave a shudder, and a sound that was halfway between a sob and a laugh. “No,” she said hoarsely. “But not as bad as I might have been. Thank you.” She shuddered again, then slowly straightened herself. 

Myka only let go of Helena’s arm when she was sure the other woman would be able to stand on her own. “Will anybody explain to me what the hell is going on here?” she said then, turning to Artie and Mrs. Frederic. 

“I will,” Mrs. Frederic said, “but not here.” She cast an irritated glance across the room. “Agent Wells, will you be able to walk about half a mile?” When Helena nodded, so did Mrs. Frederic. “I’ll see you all in the office then.” 

Myka’s stomach chose this moment to growl loudly. A moment later, her knees gave out, and she sat heavily on the floor, wondering absently if _she_ would be able to walk all the way to the office.

Artie looked at her with an inscrutable expression for a moment, then muttered to himself and walked off. Looking after him, Myka saw that Mrs. Frederic had pulled her usual disappearing act.

“Are you alright?” Helena said, bending down to Myka. 

“Yeah,” Myka sighed. “Hypoglycemic, probably.” She was feeling woozy enough, that was for sure. She tried to remember when she’d last eaten anything, but finding that she still had only very few memories made her head spin even worse, so she stopped.

“Do you have anything to eat on you?” Helena asked solicitously.

Myka snorted. “No? I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet we ate and drank anything we found in the Pete Cave.”

And then there was a gust of air, a scent of apples, and two _actual apples_ bouncing along the floor towards the two of them, coming to rest between Myka’s feet. “What the-”

“You can eat those,” came a stoic voice from the arch. Artie was back with one of the horseless stagecoaches, and gestured in annoyance at the apples. “Apparently the Warehouse likes you. For whatever reason,” he added darkly. He shook his head, then gestured. “Get on here.”

Myka grabbed the fruits, rubbed the dirt off them with her t-shirt, and held one up to Helena wordlessly. Helena accepted the apple and, also without saying a word, offered her hand to help Myka stand. She was strong, hoisting Myka upright almost effortlessly. Myka approved of that as she bit into her apple. It was too small to satiate her hunger; gone almost before she and Helena reached the stagecoach and clambered onto it. 

“Hands on the bar, please,” Artie intoned. “You too,” he told Helena with an imperious nod of his chin.

They made their way back to his office in complete silence.

Myka wondered if it’d been the right decision to invoke the bond directive – by now she was pretty certain she had not, in fact, bonded to Helena; they’d only had sex. She huffed bitterly to herself. ‘Only’. Alpha-Omega sex, even when not in heat, always was intense, and her blanking out like she had was a pretty strong pointer that at least one of them _had_ been in heat. Her suppressant was up to date, she knew, but she also knew that there were certain Omega characteristics that could overrule even the strongest blocker. 

But those were taboo. Like, _ridiculously_ taboo. Like, not just ‘go to prison’ taboo, but ‘mandated irreversible medical procedure’ taboo. Nobody in their right mind would risk that; it was _sickening_ , just like – well, just like rape. Because to put someone in a situation in which they wanted to have sex, were unable to refuse sex, had clouded judgement when it came to sex, all because of pheromones that Omegas (Alphas too, for that matter) were supposed to control (suppressants _were a thing_ , for fuck’s sake) – that was rape, even if during the act all involved parties enjoyed it. And the punishment for that was equivalently draconian.

Myka had enjoyed it, as far as she was able to remember. And that was the thing – you couldn’t really say, afterwards, what part of that had been ‘real’ and what hadn’t. It was _all_ real, it just wasn’t voluntary. And that tainted everything. 

But had those suppressants been a thing in Warehouse-12-time England? They had started around that time, Myka knew that much, but when exactly? Had Helena been on them? And if not-

Helena _had_ apologized. Profusely. 

So she _had_ employed her pheromones. Could she have stopped herself, though? She’d said she’d been unable to control herself, so probably not.

She certainly wasn’t meeting Myka’s eyes. 

Myka gulped. This was everything she hated about Alpha-Omega dynamics, had hated ever since she’d found out she was an Alpha at age seventeen. Later than most, but she’d always put that down on her puberty blockers. And _those_ had saved her _life_. And if she’d presented earlier, her father would never have allowed her to take them, so all of that had been just fine with Myka. And then her Alpha development had wreaked havoc on her body when she’d stopped puberty blockers and started taking estrogen, and Myka had _not_ been fine with that. 

Deciding to take Alpha suppressants had been ridiculously easy – one, Myka hated the whole ‘biology is stronger than free will’ thing, and two, even for a balanced relationship, how would she ever find an Omega willing to put up with all of her crap anyway? Trans women had difficulties enough finding a partner even outside of Alpha-Omega dynamics, for crying out loud. For a couple months Myka had hoped and wished on every single star in the sky that she’d be able to go on with her HRT, her transition, her plan to finally be who she knew she was inside, and ignore all that Alpha bullshit. 

It hadn’t worked. She’d been to every doctor who was even slightly knowledgeable about male-to-female trans Alphas – there weren’t all that many – and no one, not one of them had been able to find a workable solution that included estrogen. 

Worst time of her life – but thankfully it had only lasted for a year. She’d been a freshman in college by then, and one of the mental health care counselors had given her a flyer for a study _specifically designed for_ assigned-male-at-birth Alphas. Myka’s hands had shaken as she held it, and her voice had shaken as she called the number, and oh, had it been worth it. 

Second time her life had been saved. The company behind the study had found a hormone mix that allowed for a baseline intake of estrogen while accommodating the Alpha development process, and while it had still been painful, still been difficult, it was nowhere near the hell that Myka had gone through the year before. She’d seriously been contemplating getting the procedure that would remove her pheromone glands and receptors completely – the same procedure that pheromone rapists were sentenced to. Everyone was telling her not to; it was one of the most extreme solutions out there, and the media was full of articles and thinkpieces of people who regretted it, but it was the only solution Myka had seen – until then. Until freshman year, the year that saved her life. She still looked – well, androgynous slightly more than female, at least in her own eyes. A bit too buff for her taste, especially after Secret Service training - Alpha pheromones made working out ridiculously effective; she wasn't jacked, but her body was able to do pretty much whatever she wanted, and that was... more than okay - but she usually passed, and sometimes she even got complimented. 

Still, it had taken longer to come to terms with being an Alpha. Her first rut had been so awful that she’d wanted nothing more but to hide and die in ignominy. Getting bottom surgery suddenly became viscerally unthinkable, and it had taken _a lot_ of therapy to learn to live with that. These days she could accept being a woman who just happened to have a cock; she didn't even go out of her way to particularly hide it anymore. Yeah, okay, she wore pants from the men's selection, but no gaffs underneath them. Her suppressants helped. Having no facial hair to speak of helped; getting a boob job had helped. She loved her smooth chin unabashedly, euphorically, despite the pain and effort and money she’d had to put in. And, yes, she _really_ liked her boobs too. Easiest path to affirmation: look down at her chest. Worked nine times out of ten.

She was staring at them right now, she suddenly realized, and yanked her eyes away from her torn shirt collar. They were almost at the office, and she hadn’t come any further in figuring out what the hell had happened. 

With the high-power blockers – both suppressants _and_ inhibitors – she was taking, practically no Omega should have been able to elicit any kind of reaction in her. 

No Omega ever _had_ , even though some had tried. Even though some had gone quite far in their attempts. 

And the lengths that they would have had to go to in order to overrule Myka’s blockers were – taboo. Not Done. Punishable by law. Mandatory removal of glands and receptors; the only medical procedure short of capital punishment that a court could sentence someone to against their consent.

No one had risked it in the last two decades. 

What had Helena done? And why?

And would she be tried under laws that – if she truly was from Warehouse-12 times – she had no hope of knowing, or following? Sentenced to… that?

Myka felt ill. The taste of apple in her mouth suddenly seemed nauseating. She gritted her teeth to keep from gagging. Her attempts were almost thwarted when, with a sharp thud, Artie stopped the stagecoach at the foot of the winding staircase. 

“Go on,” he growled, gesturing for Helena and Myka to precede him. He had his hand on his Tesla still, but Myka couldn’t really find it in her to care right now, not when the reality of what had happened was starting to weigh down on her. 

She’d just had the most incredible sex of her life, and it had – probably. Maybe? – been rape.


	3. Chapter 3

Mrs. Frederic was already waiting for them in Artie’s office, leaning against one of the desks with her feet crossed at her ankles and her fingers steepled downwards. “Sit,” she instructed Helena and Myka, who both followed her order quickly. 

Artie took up station slightly behind them, hand still on his weapon. 

“Agent Wells,” Mrs. Frederic said, “explain what happened, please.”

Helena sat up straighter. “I should probably start with why I was bronzed,” she said, with a questioning look at the Caretaker. When she received a nod, she went on, “As I probably won’t have to tell you, I’m an Omega. From the moment I presented, I resented it. Deeply. All of a sudden, I was a brood mare by any other name, taken out of school despite surpassing my brother in just about every subject, on my way to being married off at the earliest suitable age to a man I had no hope of choosing – is it any wonder that I was embittered?”

Myka’s jaw had slackened through Helena’s words. Beyond the mandatory ‘those had been the dark times’ long-faced lectures in high school, she hadn’t really thought much about how Omegas had fared before blockers, before people had stopped fetishizing Alpha-Omega relationships and babies. Back in high school she’d had no idea she’d been an Alpha, for one thing, and other forms of oppression had been closer to her heart, literally. But now that Helena spelled it out, it hit Myka how awful things must have actually been for the people living through it in a time before suppressants. These days, no one did things this way anymore, hadn’t for decades. Well, alright, some ultra-conservatives did; usually religious and/or misogynist idiots (the overlap was large), but it was rare. But Helena had had no choice; none. Today’s Alphas or Omegas who didn’t want part of the whole deal – like Myka – could just opt out of it with blockers or, in extreme cases like Artie, with the procedure. And that option had liberated Omegas in particular and that was good; like, civilization-changing good – but Helena hadn’t had it available to her. 

Helena didn’t look at Myka as she went on, echoing Myka’s thoughts, “There were no means of _not_ being an Omega, though. No way of escaping the cage that I was about to be put in; no way of ridding myself of these impulses, of the nuisance, the ignominy, of going into heat. I set out to change that.”

Artie scoffed. “Are you seriously expecting us to believe that H.G. Wells not only wrote all those books but also invented pheromone blockers?”

“Wait what?” Myka asked, looking first at him then at Helena. At Helena George Wells. Her stomach sank further, and the apple now seriously threatened to make a comeback. 

H.G. Wells was a woman?!

“A century ago,” Helena said, fixing Artie with her gaze, “it was easier to believe in the possibility of pheromone inhibitors than in the reality that a woman was researching them. Obviously times haven’t changed all that much. Yes, sir,” the honorific came out loaded with disdain, “I invented pheromone suppressants. Laid the groundwork for them, at any rate,” she amended. “Fled my parents’ home, found employ at the Warehouse, did eight years of research. Unfortunately I never had the pleasure of reaping what I had sowed.”

“What happened?” Myka asked, curiosity getting the better of her. 

“My problem,” and that word, too, was laced with quiet fury, “was that my tastes were a bit too egalitarian for the time. I did not care if my partner was male or female, or both or neither, nor even an Alpha. I never forced myself on anybody,” and here she did cast a quick, shame-filled glance at Myka that was over almost as soon as it had begun, “but in their terror of being exposed as deviants, some of my female partners later insinuated that I had. My research was as much for my own sake as it was for that of others – while I would never rob anybody of their free will, I couldn’t deny that the possibility existed, especially in that wretched state called ‘heat’. I wanted to be free of that fear; I wanted everyone to live free of that fear.” She shrugged. “My books were merely a byproduct of my research; a way to occupy my mind with the occasional flight of fancy.”

“Why were you bronzed, Agent?” Mrs. Frederic asked with a pointed look.

“Right.” Wells took a deep breath. “Yes. Well. One of my dalliances had left me pregnant,” she said. 

Myka sucked in a breath, feeling the inhibitor mask flutter against her lips. For a long time, certainly in H.G. Wells’ time, people had believed that Omega pregnancies were special. That children conceived by Omegas were somehow better than others. That’s where the whole ‘brood mare’ mess that Helena had described originated, after all.

“I see you understand the importance,” Helena said, shooting Myka another quick look. “I was still working at the Warehouse at that time; nobody else would support me, the _deviant_ , and her harebrained research. I fought tooth and nail to keep my child with me, but eventually even the Regents disowned me – I might have been their prime agent, but I was also pregnant out of wedlock, had scandalized most of London, and now I, a fallen woman, was insisting I raise my child? My Omega child?” She scoffed. “They stood by as my brother took me captive, as he took my baby from me not an hour after birth. And when, after my following cycle maximum, I was again accused of having seduced an innocent woman, he appealed to them – and they had me bronzed.” She breathed a bitter laugh. “The Regents presented it as a sensible alternative – given that the other options were the madhouse, imprisonment or the guillotine, I did not feel that I had much choice. They conveniently forgot to mention that one would be awake while bronzed.”

Myka remembered the statues in what Artie had called the Bronze sector, and felt sick all over again. All of those people were awake?

“Immobilized, unable to see or hear or speak, but very much awake,” Helena went on, again as if she’d heard Myka’s thought. “It was torture,” Helena said in a remarkably even voice. “If the Regents had hoped that it would also inhibit my cycle, they were mistaken – or maybe they knew that, too. Do you know what happens if an Omega goes through their cycle maximum without finding relief?”

Myka swallowed dryly. She knew that intimately. It was similarly excruciating for Alphas, and when she had started presenting at the same time as transitioning and everything surrounding _that_ mess, she’d had a few rutting phases without any outside aid. “How long,” she began, and had to clear her throat. “How long were you bronzed for?”

“Well, what year is it?” Helena asked back.

“2010,” Mrs. Frederic said in her most inscrutable tones. 

A small, pained smile flickered across Helena’s face. “A hundred and thirteen years, then,” she said quietly, as if she herself couldn’t quite believe it. 

It felt like a gut punch. No matter what Helena might or might not have done, _no one_ deserved that. Four cycles per year; four hundred and fifty-two cycles in all, _none_ of them with any reprieve, any suppressants or inhibitors or even, fuck, masturbation.

“Are you in… in your maximum right now?” Myka asked, almost fearfully. Yes, she was wearing a mask, and yes, she was feeling like herself, and yes, the (pretty much literally) mind-blowing sex seemed to be over, but-

Helena hesitated for a moment, then said, “The tail end of it, yes. I think in a few hours it will be completely over.” 

“Absurd,” Artie blustered. “You are asking us to believe-” 

“I do,” Myka said, cutting him off. “Artie, I take the strongest blockers on the market, but she still got through to me.”

“And what?” he sneered. “Made you go into a trance and go all the way to the Bronze Sector, which you’ve never even heard of before much less visited, made you drag her into the Bronzer, made you tap commands into it that neither you nor she have any chance of knowing, and then drag her into the Pete Cave?”

“No,” a new voice announced, wheezing and out of breath, from the door. “I did.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Agent Lattimer,” Mrs. Frederic said, unperturbed as ever by the new arrival. “Do join us.”

Pete was leaning against – no, holding on to the door jamb. “Serious vibe,” he panted. “Ran… all the way… from Liang-569. Mykes, you okay? That mask working?” His eyes were deeply worried, and Myka immediately nodded to put him at ease. “Good. Good,” he said, and let his head sink to the door jamb. 

“Pete,” Artie snapped, “did you have something to contribute?”

“Oh!” Pete said, opening his eyes widely. “Yeah, um. Yeah, I do.” He straightened up and sat down in one of the office chairs, from where he shot Helena a quick grin-and-wave. Then he focused on Mrs. Frederic. “First I thought that Myka had gotten whammied,” he told her. “We were putting away Mata Hari’s Stockings, after all. I stopped and grabbed her, looked at her gloves, but they were fine, and her t-shirt has long sleeves.” He pointed to exhibit A, which Myka was still – or again – wearing. “She struggled and strained, said that she needed to go, so I followed her. I figured if she _had_ been whammied, she’d take me to whatever was going on, or I could find another way to stop her, or maybe we’d come by a goo shower-”

“Agent Lattimer,” Mrs. Frederic cut through his words. “Focus, please.”

“Alright, um, yeah, so… so we get to this room, right, with all the hands-in-the-air statues.” He pointed finger guns at everyone, then let them sink again when nobody twitched a muscle. “Tough crowd,” he murmured. “Anyway, she gets to one of them, and I get, like, a whiff of what’s going on, because man, look, even Betas can feel it, yeah? And I’m like, hey Mykes, took your pills this morning?, and she just _ignores_ me, going on about how she has to free this chick,” he nodded his chin at Helena. “So I thought, who am I to come between an Alpha and an Omega, right, so I look around and see that tube thing with the handles and the control off to the side, and I go Bingo!” He snapped his fingers. “So Myka drags the popsicle chick over, and just looks at the controls and then at me with that kind of kicked-puppy look that says she can’t figure this out, and look, Mykes, I know these pheromones interfere with, like, higher brain functions or something, but man, she _really_ hit you, because those controls were really not that hard to figure out, okay?”

Myka levelled a dark glare at him, but it bounced off his shrug. 

“It’s true! Anyway, Petemeister to the rescue, the chick gets unfrozen or whatever, and-” he stopped and cleared his throat, casting a furtive and slightly apologetic glance at ‘the chick’, who was glowering at him just as darkly as Myka was. “Ah, anyway, I, um, offered you the Pete Cave and you basically raced off with Ms. Omega here in tow, and that was the last I saw of you. I went to the B&B and said you’d been called away for a family emergency-”

“That was three days ago, Pete!” Artie finally exploded. “Are you telling me this has been going on for three _days?!”_ He looked apoplectic. 

His rage, too, bounced off of Pete’s shrug. “Artie, it’s the heat. You know how that works. I mean yeah, yeah, yeah, you had the procedure, yadda yadda, but you still know how it _works_ , yeah?”

“The procedure?” Helena asked, leaning forwards, suddenly aflame with curiosity. “What procedure?”

Myka tried to warn her off with a glance – it wasn’t Artie’s favorite subject at the best of times, and he didn’t really seem inclined to give Helena the time of day, much less an impromptu lecture on having his pheromone glands and receptors removed.

“As if I’d tell _you_ ,” he spat at her, predictably. 

“Agent Nielsen,” Mrs. Frederic reprimanded him. Then she turned to Myka. “Agent Bering, can you corroborate Agent Lattimer’s story at all?”

Myka sucked in her lip as she sorted through her memories. “I had a moment of… at the time I thought it was déjà-vu, when Artie, Helena and I were walking towards the Bronze Sector just now. Like I had come that way before but didn’t really remember. It spooked me, just like it spooks me that I can’t remember anything coherent before this morning. Not since shelving the Stockings, like Pete said.” She turned to Helena. “You?”

Helena cast her eyes down. “I remember feeling the onset of my maximum,” she said, “as usual. I’ve gotten used to it – not that it makes it any easier to bear, but at least I know I’ll survive,” she added with a little laugh that was on the far side of cheerful and raised the hairs on Myka’s neck. “Like I said, you don’t see, hear, feel anything in the Bronze, so I cannot corroborate Agent Lattimer’s account, unfortunately. All I can say was that suddenly – I can’t even pinpoint if I was still in the bronze or already unbronzed – suddenly I knew that an Alpha was close by. I cannot begin to tell you what… what kind of relief that is.”

“You don’t need to, Agent Wells,” Mrs. Frederic said. Myka found herself agreeing – everyone knew the feeling, either from personal experience or… well. People knew.

Helena pressed her lips together and gave a little shake of her head. “You keep calling me that,” she said. “I was… not under the impression I was still, or again, an agent.”

Mrs. Frederic’s eyebrows rose. “You are indeed still on the roster,” she said. “Agent Crowley was discharged for his handling of another, later matter, as I understand it, and replaced by Agent Caturanga, who signed off on a notice that you were, regardless of your bronzed status, still an agent. And that notice has not been rescinded.”

Helena’s eyes suddenly filled. She blinked a few times, furiously swallowing, then sniffed and said, “Well. That is something to be grateful for, then.”

Mrs. Frederic kept her gaze on her for a moment longer, then nodded and turned to Myka. “Agent Bering,” she said, “you invoked the Alpha-Omega Bond Directive. Would you care to elaborate on that?”

Myka’s ears reddened. “I had to stop him,” she said in a voice that came out small, almost timid, through the inhibitor mask. “I… I don’t think I bonded with Hel- with Agent Wells.” When Artie rounded on her, she gritted her teeth and stood her ground. “Artie, you heard her just now – people are awake in the bronze, and she was- Artie, she was frantic with fear! You might not have seen it, but I did!”

“You were under her influence!” Artie accused her, stabbing his finger at her. 

“I was wearing this mask,” Myka shot back, pointing at her face. 

“Yes, fine, you’re also taking the strongest blockers on the market and she _still_ got through to you, even bronzed!” 

“I was not influencing Agent Bering when you threatened to bronze me,” Helena cut in tersely. “She had asked me not to, and I had promised her. And I keep my promises.”

“You are in heat!” Artie all but yelled. “Are you seriously telling me-”

And then a strange serenity swept over Myka, as she saw, so very clearly, that Artie was an obstacle that she had to remove, for the sake of her Omega. She stood up, slapped the Tesla out of his hand, lifted him out of his chair, and, ignoring his splutters, carried him to the door, where she hung him on the hooks of the wardrobe by the collar of his shirt. She cast a look at her Omega, and saw a smile and a nod – it would do. She went back to her chair and calmly sat down again. 

“ _That_ ,” she heard Helena say, “was me influencing Agent Bering.”

The calm receded, and Myka suddenly slumped. Her ears rang, and then Pete was at her side, steadying her with a hand on her shoulder or she would have fallen out of her chair. 

“I do apologize, Myka,” Helena said. “Please forgive me, but I had to demonstrate-”

Myka waved her hand feebly, stopping her. “I get it,” she said. Fuck, Helena was strong, and her control over her pheromones obviously phenomenal, even ‘at the tail end of it’. Myka felt bone-tired. Leaning into Pete’s side, she added, “I don’t like it, but I get it.” She took a deep breath, which morphed into a yawn. “I did _not_ feel like this back in the Bronze Sector,” she told Mrs. Frederic. 

“Is anyone going to get me down from here?!” 

“Mykes?”

Again, she gave a shaky gesture. “Go ahead,” she told Pete. “I’m not going anywhere. I don’t think I can.”

“Yeah, no, that’s what I’m asking, partner. Can I leave you to pick me an Artie, or are you gonna keel over?”

She straightened, and then stemmed her arms on her knees in an effort to steady herself. “Go ahead,” she said again, and felt him leave. There was a rushing noise in her ears. “I do need to eat,” she mumbled, “or sit down. I think I…” She slumped forwards. 

“Myka!” she heard an alarmed voice call out. 

She fell into strong arms and a waistcoat barely holding close a blouse with all its buttons torn off. Strange, she thought, what details a mind will focus on, as above her head, she heard a voice call for something to drink, muted as if the speaker was talking through a wad of cotton wool.

She felt the body holding her shift, propping her shoulders up with a knee, holding her head in strong and gentle hands. A bottle appeared in Myka’s field of vision, bright orange with green lettering, and she twisted her lips in a grimace of disgust and tried to turn away from it as it was held to her mouth.

“Come on, you need to get your blood sugar back up,” the person holding the bottle was coaxing her.

Myka shook her head, and her senses swam with the motion.

“Mykes, come on,” another voice said. “Hey, Ice Lady, can’t you, you know? Make her?”

Myka longed for a yes to that, for that calmness to envelop her again, for the rightness of having her Omega take care of her. There was a small part inside her head that insisted that no, she didn’t want that, but she scowled at it and it went quiet.

“I cannot,” the first speaker replied, and the small part of Myka’s mind was suddenly back again, rejoicing while the rest of her was sad. “I promised.”

“Okay, Mykes, you heard the lady. C’mon, drink up.”

Feeling badgered, Myka huffed and allowed the bottle to touch her lips. She took a sip and almost gagged from the sweetness, but the second voice spurred her on, and the hand holding the bottle did not lower it. It was either drink or make a mess, so she drank. 

She’d had a third of the bottle before the hand holding it relented. It took a few moments more for the rushing in her ears to stop. 

She gazed up at the faces in her field of vision – Helena directly above her, Pete on her other side, and Artie standing at her feet. Mrs. Frederic was nowhere to be seen.

“Color’s back in her cheeks,” Pete said approvingly. “Hey partner, take it slow, okay? No more sitting on a chair for _you_ , young lady!” 

Myka grinned tiredly at his tired joke, and tried to sit up. Immediately, everything began to swim again, and immediately, Helena’s hand tightened on the back of her neck. 

“Myka, don’t,” she said quietly. 

Her fingers were so nice and cool, and it felt so right to let her head relax into them. “Are you doing something to me again?” Myka asked. “You promised.”

“I’m not exuding pheromones, no,” Helena said, “but I’m afraid even touching you will make you feel soothed, or aroused, no matter my intentions. We’re not bonded,” she added when Myka frowned and started to protest, “but we did just have our maxima together. This is a remnant of that.” Then she turned to Pete. “Are her accommodations nearby? She should rest. Nourishment, too, but rest is paramount.”

Myka saw Pete nod. “I can drive her home, yeah,” he said, “but what about you? I mean there’s no way you’re in better shape, right?”

Helena gave a little huff. “I’m afraid you’re spot on, Agent Lattimer, so if you could just point me to the nearest inn or guesthouse?”

Pete gave a double take, then laughed. “That’d be Leena’s,” he said, “and that’s where I’m going. Just tag along, okay?” He stood, picking Myka up along the way, then tilted his head at Helena. “Or do I have to carry you, too?”

Helena huffed again – it was a cute little gesture, Myka thought dreamily. “You do not,” Helena asked. She swayed a little as she rose, but before Myka could make a sound of alarm, she saw Helena steady herself. 

“Artie,” Pete said as he walked by the older agent, “you coming too?”

“Oh, _now_ you remember I’m still here,” Artie snapped. “I am most certainly _not_ coming, and you two will be responsible for anything _she_ ,” he stabbed his finger at Helena, “does. This is against my better judgement!” And he stomped off, exiting stage right from Myka’s point of view. 

She giggled at the thought. 

“C’mon, partner, let’s get you home,” Pete said.


	5. Chapter 5

Even on the car ride to the B&B, the energy drink kicked in, and Myka sat up straighter. She’d always hated how these drinks made her head feel, especially on an empty stomach, and it seemed that in the last three days – three days!! – she’d had nothing but snack food and caffeinated sugar water, with the exception of an apple. No wonder she’d almost passed out. Helena, though – Helena wasn’t just someone who’d woken up like every morning, like Myka had. She’d been imprisoned in Bronze for over a hundred years; she had to be just as shot, if not more.

Pete had put the two of them in the backseat together, and so Myka leaned over to Helena and asked, “Are you okay?”

Helena’s face gave a tiny twitch, and she kept staring straight ahead. “How long will this ride last,” she asked, “and will there be a bed at the end of it?”

“Five minutes,” Myka said, “and yes. Pete, can you give me your phone so I can call Leena and tell her to get one ready?”

“Sure thing,” Pete said, and fished his phone out of his pocket.

Helena watched Myka avidly as she made the call, and shook her head when Myka ended it. “Marvelous,” she whispered. The car swayed as Pete took a turn at an intersection, and Helena tilted into Myka despite her seatbelt. 

“Hey,” Myka smiled. Then she grew worried, because Helena was a dead weight against her shoulder. “Hey?” She patted the woman’s cheek slightly.

“Hm?” Helena murmured, struggling to sit upright. That struggle was why her cheek was suddenly pressed into Myka’s palm – the only reason, obviously. Of course. 

“Stay with me, okay?” Myka said, keeping her hand where it was just for a moment. “We’ll be there in a minute. Just a bit longer, alright?”

The look Helena gave her was as trusting as that of a child. “Alright,” she sighed.

“Here we are,” Pete said a moment later as he pulled into the driveway. 

Leena was already at the door, and between the four of them, getting into the house was achieved. 

“Why are we in my room?” Myka asked when she realized where they were.

Pete grinned. “Because you told Leena to get your bed ready,” he replied, mugging furiously. 

“I did not,” Myka protested, her blush every bit as furious. “ _A_ bed, I said.”

“Did too,” Pete sang out.

“He’s right, Myka,” Leena said. Her cheeks were a bit flushed too. “‘Leena, can you get my bed ready? Helena needs to sleep,’ that’s what you said.”

“They are right,” Helena murmured. She was swaying on the spot, eyes closed, face ashen. “Even if they weren’t,” she added, “Myka, please…”

Myka swore at herself for not paying her more attention. “Of course.” In the end, what did it matter? She took Helena’s hands and led her to the bed, and then shot a sharp glare at Pete and Leena, who were grinning like idiots. “Out,” she ordered them, and “sit down,” she told Helena.

She barely waited until the door had closed behind the two before turning back to Helena. “Okay, um,” she said, suddenly self-conscious. “Let’s, um, get you comfortable, yeah?”

Helena made a haphazard attempt at taking her waistcoat off, but her movements were barely coordinated anymore. Myka gently pushed her hands aside and got her out of her clothes and into one of her own pajamas. Helena was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow, it seemed, and for a moment, Myka stood there and looked down at her. Then she shrugged – it wasn’t as though they hadn’t shared a bed for three days – changed, and climbed in next to her.

* * *

She woke up feeling more content than she had ever felt in her whole life – and hungrier, too. Helena was wrapped around her; no: they were _entangled_ in each other, lying closer together than Myka would have thought humanly possible. At the very least, she argued, the fact that her bed was only queen-sized had turned out not to be a problem. Helena was giving off the tiniest of snores – it was oddly soothing, charming even. Unfortunately, though, now that they maxima had worn off (Myka resolved to never ever call it heat anymore; she agreed with Helena’s distaste over the word), it was undeniable that they had spent almost four days together without, not to put too fine a point on it, showering or brushing their teeth. 

It was only when Myka smelled tea, though, that she found it within herself to disentangle her limbs from Helena’s and get up. 

A tray stood right inside the door – the tea wasn’t hot anymore, but still warm, and Myka drank it eagerly. There was a little note next to the cup, from Leena: 

‘Mrs. F said she knows you aren’t really on Bond Time, but to still take the rest of the week off. She’ll send Doctor Calder around tomorrow to give Agent Wells a check-up. Let me know if/when you need more food. L’

There were several covered dishes on the tray, and Myka peeked under one by one. Apparently the scent of food – or tea – roused Helena too, because Myka heard her footfalls not too long after. 

“Oh, my,” Helena sighed, and gulped audibly. 

Myka laughed, picked up the tray and headed back to bed. They dove into the food, both ravenous for sustenance. Eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes, mixed fruit, quiche and salad – even though the cooked foods weren’t really all that hot anymore, they made short work of it all, and of the pot of tea and quart of orange juice that came with it.

“I feel like a right glutton,” Helena sighed as she leaned back against the headboard, a hand slung across her belly. 

Myka only groaned in agreement. The food wanted her to lie down and take a nap, but she felt the grime of four days on herself and shuddered at the thought of adding a fifth. “I’m gonna go and take a shower,” she announced, but made no move to actually get up and do so. 

“Do you have your own bathroom,” Helena enquired, “or are the facilities shared?”

“There are two bathrooms on this floor,” Myka said, “the small one is right next door, and then there’s the large one at the end of the hall on the left. That one has a tub, and I kinda feel like a bath, but I’m a bit afraid I’ll fall asleep in it, if I’m honest.”

Helena hummed. “I can see why,” she said. She raised a hand to delicately hide a yawn. “I would admire your commitment to grooming and hygiene, you know, if you were showing any beyond words.”

Myka snorted a laugh, but the gentle ribbing did get her off the bed. “Come on, Wells,” she said, holding out a hand to offer Helena to pull her up too. “Let me show you the facilities.” She did her best Received Pronunciation on the last two words, and that made Helena laugh too. 

When Helena took Myka’s hand, it was as if an electric shock ran through Myka. From the face of her, Helena had felt it too. Myka could sense every inch of skin she touched, with much more acuity than she felt the rest of her body. Helena’s hand felt cool in hers, calloused in some places, soft in others, and her grip was just the right strength in just the right places, as if their hands had been made for each other. Which was nonsense, Myka reasoned with herself; there was no such thing as soulmates, at least she’d always thought so, no matter what some people claimed. 

But, “Do you feel that too?” Helena asked, and when Myka looked up from their clasped hands to meet her eyes, they were wide and almost black. 

Myka let go of Helena’s hand as if she’d burned herself. When Helena’s face fell, she quickly tried to rescue the gesture by scratching a pretend itch at the back of her neck. “I, uh…” she stammered, and walked backwards until she ran into the door jamb, “I gotta, um, go. To the bathroom. Um.” And she turned and fled. 

In the bathroom, behind a safely locked door, she slowly sank to the floor. “Fuck,” she breathed. 

No, she didn’t believe in soulmates. So maybe some people – not just Alphas and Omegas, just people in general – had, like, super compatible pheromones. Or were super compatible in general. But she’d never once thought that there was this one person out there who was just right for her. 

How could there be? When she was half of this and half of that, and nothing quite fully? When she wasn’t all trans, with surgery and all, when she had a girl’s smooth chin and a guy’s cock, when she was an Alpha but didn’t really want to be and took blockers all the time, when she hadn’t even had sex in years if not longer? Who would want someone like her?

That last question sounded, in her head, very much in her father’s voice, and once again she mentally cursed him out for all he’d subjected her to. And then, remembering her therapy, she tried to focus on what she had achieved regardless – graduated high school top of her class while going through transition _and_ Alpha presentation at the same time, pre-law and pre-med, successful Secret Service agent, selected for presidential detail in record time, and now an agent protecting the world from dangerous and secret artifacts. 

She was all that. She had always worked hard to achieve what she wanted. She had been picked to protect the president, and she’d been picked to protect the world. That didn’t just happen; that meant she was doing her job well. That meant she was worth something. 

But for H.G. bloody Wells (who was a woman! Myka wasn’t done processing that yet) to pick her, her!, as Alpha!

Well, she hadn’t so much picked Myka as… latched on to the only Alpha in the vicinity, had she. Myka sighed. She might have been picked for her job, but in this, she was nothing more than expedient. 

And that happened, that was fine. It happened all the time – sure, most Alphas and Omegas (as in, ninety-nine point nine percent) were on suppressants – the stuff that blocked your own body from releasing pheromones. And everyone was able to take inhibitors – the stuff that made you insensitive to other people’s pheromones. But sometimes people’s blockers didn’t work; they forgot to take them that day, or they were ill and that influenced it – it happened, that was just life, and when it did and you found someone to enjoy it with, on a consensual basis, where was the harm? At least with blockers, consent was possible. It wasn’t as though an A-O hook-up was a big deal, except for some religious nutjobs. After World War II and the Nazis, who had glorified Alpha-Omega relationships and procreation, people now had a much more relaxed view and that was fine, no: that was _good_. Lots of Alphas and Omegas still entered relationships – love was love and good for them; other Alphas and Omegas just hooked up and good for them too.

But Myka had always, _always_ made sure to take her suppressant without fail, to have inhibitor meds in her purse for short notice situations, to have an iron grip on her feelings and reactions. Once, she’d been on a cross-country train trip, back in college, with an Omega who’d somehow, stars knew how, reached his maximum barely after setting out. He’d suffered so much she’d felt it across the length of the train, and when half an hour later he was still projecting, she’d sighed and found him, accepting that apparently she was the only Alpha on board and he was in crisis. 

It was the kind thing to do, in such circumstances. Yeah sure, there was masturbation – there was _always_ masturbation; it was her mantra – but why not help a fellow human being in need when she was able to? 

Sure, okay, that had just been a quick stand-up job at the very back of the train, not a freaking _three-day fuck session_ that, to add insult to injury, she barely remembered.

With H.G. fucking Wells. Who, apart from being Myka’s absolute favorite author, apparently was a woman.

A gorgeous woman. 

A woman who, Myka knew, was so far out of her league she had no hope in hell. 

And an Omega she had banged till they both were sore and on the verge of collapsing.

And someone to whom she felt bonded even though they weren’t.

Myka cursed softly. Then she gritted her teeth and got on with getting into the shower. The situation was as it was and doubtlessly there would _not_ be a repeat performance. Helena was past her maximum, and she now had access to suppressants to prevent reoccurrence of what she hated so much. 

No, Myka sighed to herself as she started to lather up her hair, it wouldn’t happen again. And that was all for the better.


	6. Chapter 6

It wasn’t fair, Myka concluded after two days. 

After that first night, Helena had moved to her own room – however that had appeared; Myka did wonder if the B&B wasn’t just as weird as the Warehouse was – and while they hung out together and spent time together during the day, it was more like… mentoring, or something like that. Helena knew nothing of the twenty-first century, after all, and was endlessly fascinated by everything from artificial intelligence to zippers. And, as Myka was there because she’d been told to take time off, it fell upon her to explain what she could to Helena. Claudia, while just as intrigued as Myka about suddenly having a female H.G. Wells in their midst, was out on retrievals with Pete more often than not, and was both exhilarated at being allowed in the field, and grumpy that she wasn’t there to explain TVs and computer hacking to Helena. 

And Helena took it all in stride, with as much grace as she’d shown rising from the Pete Cave bed in a stained sheet.

It wasn’t fair. 

Myka felt frazzled, both literally – she loved her hair; she was proud of her hair, but spring was turning into summer, and she hated what South Dakota summers did to her hair – and figuratively. 

No, she hadn’t bonded with Helena, and yes, the ‘magic’ of their touches was lessening day by day, but she… she _wanted_ the woman. 

She wanted to be near her, she wanted to make her laugh – shit, Helena laughing with her head thrown back was a work of fucking _art_ – she wanted to impress her by explaining why cars drove or planes flew. 

H.G. Wells pouted, actually, ridiculously _pouted_ , when she learned that flight had been invented barely after she’d been bronzed. She badgered Myka about flying and planes to the point where Myka had the Featherhead company register website open, looking for small charter companies that she could book a sightseeing flight with. 

And then Myka’s phone would go off with a text from Pete, and Helena would be down the next rabbit hole, and an hour later triumphantly declare that her friend Nikola Tesla had laid the groundwork for Wi-Fi. 

Myka found it hard to keep up, and _that_ was new. She’d always been proud of her brains, of being the smartest person in the room most of the time, and now she was… oddly proud of Helena? And she didn’t know how to process that. 

It wasn’t fair, that was all there was to it. 

It wasn’t fair that Helena seemed to have no trouble at all adapting to a whole fucking century’s worth of advances and evolutions, while Myka had trouble adapting to one single person being added to the B&B. 

Not fair at all.

Also, Helena was so tactile. Not with Myka, thankfully; someone must have told Helena that Myka didn’t like to be touched all that much. But sometimes, sometimes she found herself watching Helena laugh at a joke of Leena’s with her hand on Leena’s arm and _resenting_ that little touch, and imagining, with excruciating detail, how it would feel if Helena put her hand on Myka’s arm like that.

Myka understood the need for contact; of course she did. Fuck, after over a hundred years in bronze she’d probably need it, too. She herself didn’t do too well with touching other people, or other people touching her – she remembered too clearly the silent disapproval in her mom’s eyes when she’d gone on puberty blockers, and how Jean had stopped hugging Myka that summer, remembered the revulsion on her father’s face after her chest surgery and how he had refused to even look her in the eyes for months after that. Remembered every instance of dysphoria at being ‘bro-hugged’, every ‘friend’ who had pulled back from her after she’d come out, as if being trans was somehow a transmittable disease or something, remembered the advances of people out to add ‘sleeping with a trans Alpha’ to their bucket list. 

No, Myka wasn’t a fan of physical contact, generally speaking, so why, _why_ did she find herself longing for Helena’s touch?

She kept all of that to herself, of course; Helena certainly had other worries. Doctor Calder had proclaimed her medically healthy, but had also started her on a vaccination regime that very much looked like no fun at all from Myka’s point of view, and even if Helena hadn’t been going through that, how would Myka bring up to the woman that she wanted to touch her without sounding like the creepiest Alpha jock?

They hadn’t talked about what had happened in the Pete Cave. They were very careful not to talk about it, or mention or even allude to anything sexual, physical, interpersonal. Pete had tried to make a few Alpha-Omega jokes, but they’d run into the frostiest glares Myka and Helena had been able to call up, so he’d stopped that nonsense pretty sharply.

There had been _one_ conversation, very brief, extremely tense, with Mrs. Frederic, about whether or not Myka wanted to press charges and/or had an issue with working with Helena. Myka had done a lot of thinking about the whole matter in the privacy of her mind, and had been watching Helena very closely – and nothing seemed to indicate that the woman was a predator, a rapist, anything but deeply uncomfortable with what had happened and anxious to put Myka – and anyone else – at ease about having her pheromones under control. For the now, that was enough for Myka, and she said so. Mrs. Frederic announced that what was good enough for her, and that if Myka’s stance on the matter should change, Myka should feel no hesitation or compunction about bringing that to the Caretaker’s attention. Myka had asked that Mrs. Frederic inform Helena about her decision; she couldn’t really fathom taking the female frickin’ H.G. Wells aside and talking to her about this. About anything about this. 

Helena, for her part, didn’t instigate any conversation either. . And then the weekend was gone and it was Monday and Myka was back on the job, and there was even less opportunity to talk to each other about microwaves and string cheese, much less anything more serious than that. 

And then Myka’s dad got whammied.

Pete tagged along to run interference, and was sorely needed. There were moments in there when Myka could have killed Warren Bering with her bare hands. ‘Bering and Sons’ – even the shop sign spat in her face. Part of her snarled with satisfaction at how her dad was hurting, and the rest of her, her more rational mind, was appalled at how much hate she still felt towards this sorry excuse for a parent. 

They saved him, and Pete bustled her out the door immediately, and then he had a vibe that bowled him over and they had to go back and James MacPherson was threatening Jean – yeah, okay, and Warren too. And Pete – Pete made the call, because Myka couldn’t, because Myka was rooted to the spot, torn between that vicious satisfaction she’d felt earlier, and the weirdness that was seeing a neutral look on Warren Bering’s face for once, a look not marred by smugness or disgust. 

She called her therapist on their way home – hadn’t done that in years, but it sounded like a good idea. The man was booked for the next two weeks, though. He offered a few words on the phone, but Myka knew she needed far more than that to get her head back on straight. 

In the B&B, she went straight to the basement gym, laying into the punching bag until she knew her knuckles were bleeding inside their gloves. She brimmed with resentment, confusion, anger, at MacPherson and her dad in turns, at herself at times, too. A rebound of the punching bag that she was too inattentive to dodge blindsided her, and she landed on her knees and vomited, and cried with rage. 

And then cool hands were on her face, wiping strands of hair out from where they were stuck with sweat or vomit, wiping her skin down with a wet cloth, and a voice was murmuring, shushing, and with an immense effort, Myka pulled herself together. 

Helena didn’t know to stay away from Myka when Myka was in the gym. 

Obviously no one had told her. 

It wasn’t her fault, and lashing out at her wouldn’t be right.

So Myka prodded and tugged at whatever tatters remained of her self-control, and gritted her teeth and sat up and did _not_ push the other woman away but rather scooted back on her butt until she was out of reach of Helena’s hands. To Helena’s credit, she got the hint and stayed where she was.

“Thank you,” she muttered, not meeting Helena’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Helena asked. 

Myka shut her eyes and wished she could shutter her face just as easily. “Nothing,” she said curtly, hoping that Helena would take that hint too. 

“Ah,” Helena said, sounding a bit sad. “That kind of thing.” Myka heard a rustle and hoped that Helena was getting up and leaving, but then Helena spoke again and her voice still came from ground level. “Anything I can do to help?”

Anger welled up in Myka again, a dark wave of bile and bitterness. “What, like sex it better?” she spat.

She heard Helena inhale sharply through her nose, but still the woman stayed put. Myka’s insides were screaming for her to leave already – why wasn’t she picking up on that with her fabled Omega instincts? Was she trying to goad Myka into releasing Alpha pheromones to make her do what Myka wanted? She wouldn’t be the first, and Myka’s self-control was adamant; if that was what Helena was after, she’d fail, Myka thought darkly.

“You don’t truly think that that is all I can do to improve matters,” Helena said matter-of-factly. “I’m aware we haven’t known each other for long, but surely you know better than that by now.”

“Well, you can’t fucking take me apart, repair me and put me together again, I know that much,” Myka retorted. “So, yeah, I do wonder.”

“You’re hurting.”

Myka gritted her teeth so hard she could hear them protest. “No shit, Sherlock.” Could Helena not simply take a hint and leave already?

Helena made a little sound – half sigh, half hum. “I’m sorry,” she said, and finally, she was standing up. “I misjudged. I shall leave now, but my offer still stands. And no, I am not talking about sex. Please do take care of your knuckles, Myka.” And then there was the sound of receding steps, and of a door being shut with care.

How did Helena know about Myka’s knuckles? Myka opened her eyes. First, she peered around the room – yep, Helena was gone. Then she looked at her gloves – nothing to see there. She took them off and winced as she saw the broken skin, the blood underneath the tape. A lucky guess? She winced again as she saw the puddle of sick on the floor. With a heavy sigh, she got up to fetch a rag and bucket, and set to cleaning up after herself.

After that, she did take care of her knuckles. It felt strange, to do what Helena had asked her to do. It didn’t sit quite right, but it also somehow did? It was the sensible thing to do, of course, and it was most certainly _not_ sensible resenting it just because Helena had said she should – the opposite of sensible, really. 

On the other hand, Myka wasn’t raging at her dad anymore, so there was that. If anything, Helena popping in the way she had had taken Myka’s mind off things to the point where the anger merely simmered, no longer boiled. 

Myka grimaced as she put ointment on the cracks and wrapped gauze around her hands. It hurt, but this was good hurt. Healing hurt like that. Getting better hurt like that. She could handle hurting like that. It wasn’t the first time, and it would not be the last. Everyone dealt with things their own way; this was hers, and Helena had hopefully learned to leave Myka to it. 

Still, her cool hands had been nice. 

Myka rolled her eyes at herself for that thought. 

She did dream of those cool hands that night, but she’d rather bite off her tongue than mention that to Helena. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myka remembers what happened between her and Helena. This is pretty graphic, so please be aware of that and use your discretion.

The next morning, Myka almost stumbled over a tray outside her door – two covered plates and a thermos mug of coffee. She blinked and took it back to her bed, then went to the bathroom, as originally intended. When she came back, the tray was still on her bed. It hadn’t just been a hallucination, then. 

Myka sat down and lifted the first cover: vegetable omelet smothered with cheese, still piping hot and just the right state of doneness. Whoever had made this had incredible timing. The second plate held the best chopped salad she’d ever tasted; crisp and tangy and a bit bitter, it was even better than the omelet if that was even possible – veggie cheese omelet was her all-time favorite, after all. The coffee in the thermos mug was perfect, too; a tall Americano with an extra shot, just the way she liked it. Sure, okay, everybody in this building knew that, but still, Myka had her suspicions about who had made her breakfast.

When she got down to the kitchen, only Leena was there. “Oh, hi Myka! Thanks,” she said, taking the tray from Myka’s hands. “You got lucky with that one,” she added, nodding at the empty plates.

“Who made that?” 

“Helena,” Leena said with a shrug, confirming Myka’s thought. “And she hates cooking, like, flat-out _hates_ it.”

“Huh,” Myka said. “She’s good at it though.” She wiped a last smidgeon of salad dressing from the plate right before Leena put it into the dishwasher, and licked it off her finger. “Where is she? Where is everybody, really?”

“At the Warehouse already, doing inventory,” Leena replied. “Pete said to let you sleep, and then Artie said to take the day off if you were still angry; Warehouse mojo and all that, you know how it is. Want help with that?” She glanced meaningfully at Myka’s knuckles.

“Nah, I got it,” Myka sighed. Artie was right, she probably shouldn’t mope around the Warehouse in her current state, even if it was better than yesterday. Then she came back to her original question. “Did Helena say why she made me breakfast if she hates cooking that much?”

Leena shook her head. “I think she just wanted to do something kind for you.”

“Huh,” Myka said again. She wasn’t exactly used to that. 

“Pete kinda hinted that yesterday’s retrieval was hard on you,” Leena said. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t catch Helena going down to bother you. I should have told her.”

Myka took a deep breath, then shook her head. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, “she knows now.”

Leena gave a little grimace. “Whoops,” she said quietly. “Anyway, you look better this morning, if you don’t mind me saying so. Although if you want to or need to, you can always help me with some yard work. I don’t have any wood you could chop, but the back two beds need digging over.”

Myka suppressed a smile. Leena had that effect on her – not even a year that Myka was living here, and Leena knew how to help her deal. Taking a shovel to garden beds was one way. It didn’t quite beat chopping wood, but if there was no wood to be chopped, it would do. “Sure,” Myka said. 

“Please wear gloves,” Leena reminded her. “You don’t need blisters on top of that,” and she nodded at Myka’s knuckles again. 

“Yes ma’am,” Myka countered, giving Leena a halfway-jaunty salute. When Leena grinned at her, she allowed herself a little smile back. 

Three hours later, the garden beds were shiny and red, Myka’s shoulders and back were deliciously sore, and most of her anger was clear out of her system. She straightened, stemmed her hands into the small of her back and stretched languorously. 

“A job well done,” Leena called from the kitchen window. “Lunch, and then a trip to the farmer’s market to pick up seeds and seedlings?”

Myka shrugged. “Sure, why not. Just give me a bit to shower, yeah?”

Leena snorted. “You better. I’m not getting into a car with you before that.”

Myka grinned back at her – Leena was alright. More than alright. Talking with her, being around her was _easy_. Pete, too. Claudia, a bit less so – Myka was not used to someone looking up at her like to a big sister; Tracy certainly never had. Claudia and her unabashed admiration made Myka nervous; she didn’t want to screw up and disappoint Claudia’s trust in her, or give her ill advice, or be a bad role model or whatever it was that Claudia saw in her. Artie – Artie was slowly beginning to grow on Myka, although his continuing mistrust of Helena was putting a dent in that at the moment. Trust had always been the issue between them; and if Artie, like he claimed, trusted Myka’s judgement in all other things, why didn’t he when it came to Helena?

Helena. 

The biggest conundrum of them all, Myka thought as she slowly walked up the stairs and to her bedroom to grab clean clothes. 

It was… it was nice to be in Helena’s company. Helena was smart, witty, curious, open-minded, erudite – lots of characteristics that Myka liked in people. If they had met any other way, _any_ other way, Myka wouldn’t have minded being around Helena, she was sure. But things being as they were, she thought as she stepped into the shower and let the hot water soothe her muscles, she had no idea how much of her friendly feelings towards Helena were real, based on the kind of person Helena was, and how much of it was leftovers from their shared pheromone haze. And that memory – or half-memory, or flashes of half-buried memories – and the insecurity that went with it, still hung over their every interaction. Myka didn’t even know if Helena felt the same; _that_ was how much they hadn’t talked about it. It was just too awkward, wasn’t it, to talk about ‘that time we had mind-blowing sex for three days before we even knew each other’.

In a way, it was a blessing that Myka barely remembered anything about those three days; having the rare, _very_ rare (because Myka was nothing if not disciplined with her thoughts) flash image of her fingers running over white skin flecked with freckles was bad enough when it happened late at night; so far, she’d been able to keep her mind on other matters when talking with or about Helena. Mental discipline, that was the way. Mind over matter. Maintain an iron grip on her thoughts, and interactions with Helena were manageable. 

Relaxed, though, they were not.

Myka put all of those thoughts away, though, as she climbed into the passenger seat of Leena’s car. Leena was relaxing to be around, and Myka intended to enjoy that while she had the chance. 

Another two hours later, groceries and greeneries had been acquired, and Myka’s shoulders were definitely complaining as she carried bags and boxes into the B&B. Myka, though, was as calm as she hadn’t been in a long time. Being around Leena tended to do that for you. With Leena, even more than with Pete, you could just _be_. Therefore, when all the boxes and bags had been stowed away, Myka hesitated briefly in the doorway. “Thanks, Leena,” she said.

Leena gave her a big, beaming smile. She didn’t even ask what Myka meant – she could see auras, after all, and Myka was sure that her aura looked markedly different from this morning. “Anytime,” she replied. “See you for dinner?”

Because of course Leena also knew that Myka needed some time to herself now. Myka nodded. “I’ll come down at five to help you?”

Leena nodded and gave her a thumbs up. 

Myka headed up to her room and delved into a book for the rest of the day, feeling borderline happy, even.

And then the memories started trickling back, as if they’d been waiting for Myka to reach this state of relaxation. 

Helena, stumbling out of the Bronzer and into Myka’s waiting arms and barely taking a breath of air before she kissed Myka – and what a kiss it was; hungry, desperate, utterly overwhelming with Helena’s heady pheromones swirling around them.

The moment when Myka had decided – if you could call it that – to give in to Helena’s emanations. They’d been in the Pete Cave by then, although Myka still didn’t know how they’d gotten there. _She_ had changed the sheets, in a remarkable display of discipline and good manners. And then she’d looked at Helena – at this wonder of a woman, whose scent was driving her up the walls with want to the point where she barely remembered her own name – looked at the Cave and the freshly made bed, and had decided that this was as much prep as she was willing to sacrifice time for, and had finally, _finally_ , let everything run free. 

They had practically clawed their clothes off of each other, not caring if they scoured skin in the process. Helena’s panties had been wet, dripping wet, soaking wet, and Myka had groaned feeling the slickness on her fingers, smelling the scent of Helena’s arousal – so, so good – and her own briefs had been so tight by that point that she’d half ripped them open in her haste to get out of them. And for the first time in her life, she had felt completely and unmistakably at ease with her body in a sexual setting. There had been no dysphoria. There had been no hesitation, no compunction, no embarrassment.

Helena, equally unabashed and why should she have been, had climbed her like a tree, had planted herself onto Myka’s cock without any kind of preamble, but fuck, who needed foreplay when Alpha and Omega pheromones were doing their thing? Myka had knotted right there and then, Helena had cried out in bliss, Myka had buried her hands in Helena’s hair and tugged, and Helena had started coming apart, and that had brought Myka over, and they had both orgasmed for longer than they had been actually fucking, for crying out loud.

They’d landed on the bed together when Myka’s legs had given out, had barely waited for Myka’s cock to soften before they’d been at it again; missionary, doggy, cowgirl, Helena’s legs in the air and Myka’s finger in her ass, Myka’s whole fucking _hand_ in her vag and Myka’s cock in her ass – Myka blushed fiercely as the memories flooded back. 

They had been shameless. Not once had Helena batted an eye about a person with boobs and a cock; not once had Myka even spared a thought about having boobs and a cock or what Helena might possibly be thinking about a person with boobs and a cock. No, they’d just fucked each other senseless, slept a bit, raided the fridge, and fucked some more. 

Fuck, Helena had felt so good. 

Myka would never have thought that sex could feel this good, this uninhibited – literally. She’d been on blockers with the guy on the train – this, _this_ was not that, holy shit. She had never once knotted in another person, to start with. Fuck, she had _screamed_ through her first orgasm with Helena, screamed and howled as if she was fucking baying at the moon, only the moon had been Helena and how incredible she felt around Myka’s cock, how right it had felt to knot inside of her and fill her up with jizz. 

No, Myka had never knotted inside of someone else, and the few times she’d masturbated to the point where her knot had appeared in her hands, she’d been embarrassed at the amounts of semen that the following orgasm invariably produced, too ashamed to even consider letting anyone else witness that. She’d always scoffed at the thought that Omegas wanted that, that their anatomy and their erogenous receptors were wired to enjoy precisely the knotting, the spurting, the bucket loads of cum. It sounded so… so animalistic. A mockery of free will, in a way, something that rubbed Myka completely and totally wrong. And then, impaled upon Myka’s cock, immobilized by Myka’s knot, and with cum filling up her insides, Helena had cried, honestly actually cried tears of relief – and now that Myka knew that this had been the first time in over a century that Helena had gotten what she needed during her maximum, the thought made her head spin, and not in a rubbed-wrong way at all.

Fuck. 

And now her cock was rock-hard and, yep, knotting; bulging and leaking from even just the memories of being buried in Helena’s cunt.

Myka gritted her teeth. She was nowhere near her maximum, it was _ten fucking days_ away and shouldn’t even really happen with the suppressants she was taking; she shouldn’t even have a boner right now, but there it was. 

Time to lock the door, grab lube and an A condom out of the drawer, and get to work. There was always masturbation, after all. Fuck, she wished she felt the same way now as she had with Helena – any boner brought dysphoria, always had. Myka snorted softly as she gritted her teeth and rolled the condom over. As if one instance of sex with an Omega, even high on pheromones, would cure that. Oh, she remembered the euphoria perfectly well now, but that didn’t mean she still felt it. And yeah, she’d beat her meat because it was necessary, but feel good about it? She shuddered. She also couldn’t help but wonder, remembering that euphoric feeling now, if that was how cis people felt all the damn time – if so, she was _envious_. 

Fuck, it had felt so good. All of it. Just, all of it. She really remembered everything now; _every thing_ -

Yep, still embarrassing. Shit, the amount of jizz the condom was catching was _insane_ , and still her cock wasn’t soft – she hadn’t been like that since she’d presented, never been like that on suppressants – where they even still working? Fuck, what did this mean for her maximum?! She groaned and resigned herself to the fact she’d need a round two, potentially a round three to be any kind of ready for polite company tonight. She was lucky she even still had enough condoms; it wasn’t as though she had much used for them, much less three in a fucking row-

Shit. Her fist slid to a halt as a thought trickled through her veins like sudden ice.

She’d barebacked Helena. 

Shit, _shit_ , shit shit shit shit. 

There was _no way_ that Helena was on any kind of birth control. 

Shit, fuck, _shit_ in a fucking shit sandwich. Shit. 

Okay, Myka told herself, deep breath. Not every unprotected Alpha-Omega coupling ended in pregnancy, not even during shared maxima. She snorted softly. ‘Not every’; who was she kidding. Eighty-five percent was eighty-five percent, sure, yeah, ‘not every’, but damn close anyway. But maybe the bronze had an influence on whether or not Helena was receptive, able to conceive? Or all those vaccines, maybe, or the stomach bug Helena had caught on day three? So then what, seventy percent? 

Wouldn’t Doctor Calder have said something, have known something? Granted, she’d examined Helena only one day after, four days after they’d started, and even Omegas didn’t show that fast. And even then, would she have told Myka? It was Helena’s business, after all, way more than it ever would be Myka’s, even if Helena wanted Myka involved in any potential-

Myka stopped her thought there and then. 

Doctor Calder – she would have had the O morning after pill on her, for sure, didn’t she? 

But would Helena even want that? Myka well remembered the pain in Helena’s expression when she’d talked about the child that had been taken from her. Maybe she wanted a kid, to… to make up for the one she’d lost, or something?

Fuck. 

Myka should probably talk with Helena about that, right?

But probably not when she was still reeking of fapping.

She listened at her door before slipping out into the hallway and making her way to the small bathroom next door, where she drained the condoms down the toilet before discarding them, knotting up the trash bag and changing it for a new one, and tossing the old one on the pile of things she needed to take downstairs, to either put in the laundry or in the garbage. 

Then she showered as hotly as she could bear it. 

Still, though, Helena would know what Myka had been doing this afternoon, would smell it on her. Omegas always knew, didn’t they? Thankfully no one else would – Artie was the only other Pheromaniac, as Claudia called it, in the house, and he’d had the procedure, after all. Maybe Leena would know, what with auras and the likes, but Leena didn’t judge. 

Would Helena? 

Myka leaned against the shower wall and softly let her head thud against the tiles. Shit. What a fucking mess.

She did need to talk with Helena. And soon. Ask her what she wanted, if she wanted anything from Myka in terms of support or… or whatever; see if her, Myka’s, life would be anything even close to the same after that conversation. 

What a fucking mess. 

Did Helena even know what she wanted? As the shower’s hot water ran down her body, Myka ran cold. Sure, Helena seemed stable, but fuck, over a century alone with her thoughts and her cycle – could anyone come away from that and truly be stable? Okay, so that was Helena’s own business, but… but Myka suddenly found that she was worried. Worried if Helena was the one that Myka should be going to, reaching out a helping hand to, making – well, no, not making breakfast for; she knew her limits. Was it too late to ask Helena how she was? If she was okay? If she even wanted Myka to help?

Would Helena ever want an Alpha to help her?

Myka groaned and thudded her head against the tiles again. This mess was getting messier by the fucking minute.

Then she shook herself, and turned the shower off. Nothing for it, Bering, up and at ‘em. Face up, chin straight, get it over with. Do the right thing. Ask Helena, straight up, see what she says. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? They both were fucking adults, for crying out loud.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: transphobic slurs

Five days later, Myka still hadn’t made a single step towards Helena’s door. Oh, she’d had the best of intentions after her shower, and then as she’d arrived at the dinner table, barely in time for the first course, first she’d gotten a knowing little smirk from Leena that had cracked her composure, and then a bottomless, yes, fucking bottomless look from Helena, which a second later was replaced by the coldest fucking courtesy that a Victorian Englishwoman was capable of. 

What on Earth was Myka supposed to make of that?

And now they were on their way to California, Claudia, Myka and Helena; and Helena was getting the first flight of her life, and she and Claudia were straight up _squeeing_ , and Myka had never felt like such a third wheel in her life. It didn’t even matter that she was a third wheel to a purely platonic friendship, she was _the_ fucking third wheel – even the flight attendant was giving her pitying glances. 

Trust Artie to pick the worst kind of retrieval to test if Helena could be trusted out in the field. Freshmen wrestlers, young men in their prime and on a winning streak; cocky motherfuckers at the best of times, testosterone in fucking spades, and probably a good number of Alphas among them. Myka shuddered. Sure, from Arties standpoint it made sense; if Helena could handle this without incident, it was proof positive that her suppressant was working, but seriously, wasn’t this like, step four before step one? 

Myka felt as though she was the only one to have these misgivings; Helena had accepted the assignment out of, in her words, a ‘confessed interest in how strong these blockers are’, which, given the situation in the B&B, of course she couldn’t really test at home – Myka had flat-out refused to ‘subject her to a little bit of Alpha’ two days ago. Claudia, meanwhile, floated on air about her first mission with Helena, who she’d come to look up to even more than Myka. That was the other thing, though – if anything went wrong with Helena, having only Claudia as a backup was… not ideal. 

And people were dying. These kids were dying. It wasn’t as if they were looking for Pavlov’s Bell or anything cute like that. They were looking for a killer artifact – what could go wrong?!

Thirty-six hours later, Myka knew _exactly_ what could go wrong. 

Oh, Helena had shone; had saved first Myka’s life and then Claudia’s life, the latter with help of her still-or-again impressive knowledge of human biology. Between the three of them, they even had the artifact snagged and bagged.

But something was wrong now. Myka’s Spidey-sense was tingling, that’s how Pete would put it. When they’d informed Artie about their success, he had sent Helena and Claudia back to the dorms to spread the ‘mushroom explanation’ to the students while Myka was to do the same with the faculty, and Myka hadn’t liked that one bit. It was as if Artie was deliberately trying to trip Helena up, sending her in among the Alphas again and again. Even Claudia had been affected in there earlier, no matter how well she’d rallied after Myka’s pep talk, and no wonder. The team was ninety percent Alphas, of the ‘no true sportsman uses suppressants, hur hur’ variety. It had set Myka’s fucking _teeth_ on edge, blockers and all; it had severely discomfited Claudia, and Helena-

Keep calm and carry on, sure, but Myka had _seen_ the strain in how Helena held herself as the pheromones battered against her inhibitor. 

And Myka could sense them now as she ran towards the dorms. 

Something was _wrong_. It was as if she heard a klaxon at the edge of her hearing, some sort of signal that she needed to find the source of. At least it was sort of leading her to where she apparently needed to go; she could follow it as if it was a scent – and maybe it was. 

Because it had Helena written all over it. 

Somehow she knew that too – whatever it was, whatever was wrong, Helena was right smack in the middle of it. 

Myka’s thoughts were black as she sprinted, flat-out, towards the Alpha dorm.

“Myka! Oh thank God,” Claudia panted, running towards her down the stairs, pointing back over her shoulder. “I tried, I seriously did, she did too, pulled her badge and everything-”

“Where?” Myka growled. Now that she was through the dorm’s door, the air _reeked_ of Alpha – rutting, posturing, ready-to-fight, _hungry_ Alpha, strong enough to make it through _her_ inhibitor. 

Shit.

She felt her heckles rise, and Claudia backed away from her and pointed up the stairs. “Second floor, right-hand door, at least a dozen of them; _hurry!”_

Myka didn’t need telling twice. She took the stairs three at a time, and burst through the door to see, indeed, fourteen half-naked wrestlers crowding Helena, who had her head tucked between her shoulders and her hands up in front of her.

“Freeze!” Myka bellowed, drawing her Tesla. Her voice came out a good bit lower than usual – her own pheromones were waiting, no: _raging_ to be released, to fight and bite these challengers, rip and tear them away from her Omega- 

With a massive effort, Myka pulled herself together. 

Helena had promised not to use her pheromones on Myka; the least Myka could do was do her the same courtesy, and that meant control. This wasn’t the time for an Alpha pissing contest, this was the time for cool cognition, mind over matter. 

“Secret Service,” she announced, now that everyone was looking at her. She held up her badge with one hand and let them clearly see the Tesla in her other. “Back the fuck off – you are way out of bounds, gentlemen.”

“She fucking well _came here_ ,” one of them sneered. “Got it coming to her, fucking Omega bitch, doesn’t she. Get your tranny ass out of here, Tau.” The others behind him cheered.

Myka snorted. If they thought that that was the worst taunt she’d ever heard- “Last chance,” she said. “Back off nice and slow and I’ll think about pressing charges. Best offer, boys, on the table for a count of one.”

They charged her. 

She zapped them. 

The Tesla beam flowed over the first half of them, and they dropped as they ran towards her, freeing her aim for the second half, which dropped a moment after. Then, with three quick strides that didn’t care if they landed on arm or leg or floor, Myka was at Helena’s side. “Come on,” she said quietly. Her voice was still in Alpha mode; she was hanging on to her pheromone glands with every fiber of will power that she had.

Helena looked up at her – she looked ready to vomit there and then, or faint, or scream. She swayed on the spot, obviously unable to move.

Myka cursed. Tesla’ing half a dozen people at a time meant they wouldn’t stay unconscious for long. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder: Claudia was at the door, looking anxiously between the hallway and the staircase, but the guys, at least, were still out.

She turned back to Helena. “Hey,” she said, willing her voice back to normal – fuck, eight months with a voice coach, she could _do this_ – “hey, can I lay hands on you to help you out of here? Would that be okay? We need to get out, and I’m not sure if you can do it alone. If you can, awesome, we really need to get going, but if not, I’ll carry you out if I have to; I’d just rather have your consent, okay?”

Helena shuddered, and somewhere in there was a nod. 

“Okay,” Myka said, “okay. Alright. Hold on to this, will you?” She gave Helena her Tesla – technically, she wasn’t allowed to; Artie had forbidden it. Technically, the badge that Helena had shown the guys said ‘assistant’ on it, but Myka doubted it would have worked either way. Anyway, “Tesla anyone who raises their head, okay?” she told Helena, then picked her up. 

Her muscles were straining, but that was a good sign – mind over matter. Alpha pheromones would have enabled her to fucking _throw_ Helena over her shoulder Neanderthal-style, but that was precisely what she didn’t want, so Myka relished in the ache in her arms and back as she stalked back across the stunned wrestlers, through the door that Claudia held open, and the fuck out of that fucking dorm. 

Once outside, she looked around herself. Where to now? Then, “Hey?” someone called from down the street. Myka turned with a growl, Helena shuddered in her arms, and the person who’d addressed them shrank back a little. “Omega trouble?” they asked, and, when Myka nodded curtly, said, “Follow me. I’m from Omega dorm; we got a blocker room.”

Myka allowed herself a little breath of relief; blocker rooms were a thing, even mandatory in places like universities, museums, big office buildings, sports arenas, everywhere where lots of people congregated on the regular. They’d block a person’s pheromones from leaving the room – or from entering it. They were a reprieve, and accessible to anyone who needed them, by law. 

As she walked alongside the other Omega, Claudia trailing behind them, Myka said, “I’m fully on blockers, by the way, so don’t worry about me. Sorry about the growl just now; I was a bit riled up.”

“No problem. I’m Kira, by the way, she/her/hers,” Kira added, then gestured at the building they were walking towards. “It’s in here, one floor down on your right. I’m coming with you. You need to get out of the room right away; Omegas and Betas only.”

“Thanks,” Myka said, “I’m Myka, that’s Claudia and Helena. She/her/hers all around. Thanks for the assistance.” They were through the door now, and Kira led them down the stairs and to a door she quickly unlocked. Claudia squeezed past and turned on the light – the room was quiet, large enough for a bed, a three-quarter bath behind a curtain, a shelf with books and a small TV, and a chest with – Myka shrugged – sex toys and condoms probably, this room being what it was. She put Helena down on the bed, inwardly cursing at the visual. It couldn’t be helped, though, there was no other seating in the room. 

When she tried to straighten to leave, Helena whimpered and clung to Myka’s neck. Again, Myka swore internally. “Claudia, get a glass of water,” she instructed, and dug through her pockets for the little pack of emergency inhibitors. “Helena, I need to leave; I can’t be in here, you heard Kira,” she said, low and intent. “Come on, you can do this. Focus, okay? Mind over matter; you can do this.” She hated seeing Helena reduced to this, and she was one thousand percent certain that the small part of Helena’s mind that was not currently overtaken by fucking pheromones hated it too. “Come on,” she said again, jiggling the little blister of pills in her hand, “I’ve got a broadband inhibitor for you, will give you the mother of all headaches, but you will be free of this, okay? Claudia, give me a hand here.”

Claudia stepped from foot to foot nervously. “How?” she asked doubtfully.

“Helena, you gotta let go,” Myka said. “Let Claudia help you unfurl your hands, okay? No, don’t rub – _don’t rub_.” She gritted her teeth as the motion of Helena’s wrists on her neck, Omega gland to Alpha gland, tried to wake something primal. “You got this, Helena, you know you don’t need to do this. Come on, work with me here, will you?” She could feel Claudia’s hesitant hands work on Helena’s fingers. Helena’s forehead was leaning against hers now, her quick shallow breaths whispers on Myka’s cheeks. In the sink’s mirror, she could see Kira stand in the door with a surprised look on her face – probably wondering why on Earth Myka didn’t switch into Alpha mode just long enough to fucking _order_ Helena to open her hands, not that Myka ever, _ever_ would. She’d rather cut her own head off to get out of this death grip than subject Helena to that. 

“Is that A-O-Four?” Kira asked finally, gesturing at the pills. When Myka nodded confirmation, she huffed and said, “Give me a minute; I’ll get Omega-specific inhibitors. Faster action, less headache. Just… just don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

For a moment, Myka lost focus on Helena, that was how stunned she was. She knew why Kira had been standing watch, and she knew that normally, an Omega would never leave a fellow Omega with an Alpha in a blocker room. 

Then Claudia managed to pry Helena’s fingers loose, and Myka’s attention snapped back to the matter at hand. “Good,” she said instinctively, and then bit her tongue – some Omegas had a thing for praise, had a praise _kink_ to be precise, and she did _not_ want to even appear to be playing into that. “Sorry,” she added quickly. Helena was now clinging to Claudia’s hands; the glass of water was over on the chest. Myka grabbed it quickly, then Kira was back. The other Omega took the glass from Myka, then jerked her head towards the door. 

Myka left at once. 

Helena cried out plaintively, and Myka clenched her teeth together – even on full blockers, she wanted nothing more than to run back in there, cradle Helena to her, tell her that everything would be alright-

But that wasn’t gonna happen. 

Mind over fucking matter, Bering.

It couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t. One, it wasn’t done – she’d been in the blocker room more than long enough; by now there were two more dorm residents at the foot of the stairs, glaring at her – and two, Helena would hate her. Oh, not now; right now she was begging for Myka, by fucking name, to come back. Myka’s hands were almost at her ears before she realized how fucking pitiful that would look. She ran her fingers through her hair instead, because that was much more inconspicuous, and no one would see if she yanked a bit, right? 

She turned towards the stairs, fully intending to leave, but she hadn’t taken three steps away from the doors when Helena’s cries turned into wails. Myka pinched her eyes shut in supplication, but stopped, took two steps back – the wails subsided.

Fuck. Fucking shit in a thousand fucking shit sandwiches.

She really needed to read up on bonds after this – she didn’t _think_ they had bonded; there had been no physical traces to indicate that they were bonded, but this was bonkers, this shouldn’t be happening to an Alpha and an Omega who weren’t bonded. Granted, ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ might be a bit thrown off when it came to someone who’d been bronzed since the late nineteenth century, but still, this wasn’t _normal_ , this wasn’t good. Especially not considering how highly Helena valued her independence, her agency, her free fucking will, for fuck’s sake.

Artie would throw a fucking fit.

And sure, okay, he’d been the one who’d given Helena a mission that had been too much to handle – but any mission could turn on a dime; agents needed to be reliable, and this here scene was anything but. On the other hand, if Myka had truly been the lead of this mission, there was no way in hell she would have sent Helena into that dorm again. But where was the line between having your partner’s back and making allowances?

“Myka?” came Claudia’s anxious voice from the still-open doorway. 

Myka turned around. “Yeah?”

“I think the inhibitor is kicking in,” the kid said. She bit her lip. “What are we gonna do?”

Again, Myka ran her hand through her hair. All of a sudden, she was tired. Tired of Artie’s games, tired of the thought of having to face Helena, of Helena having to face her, tired of the by now half-dozen Omegas gathered at the foot of the stairs. “I just wanna get out of here,” she sighed. “We’re not heading home tonight; we’ll find a hotel somewhere, catch our breath. Has Helena said anything about what she wants or needs?”

Claudia shook her head. “She hasn’t said anything. I think she’s mortified,” she added in a whisper. 

“No kidding,” Myka exhaled. Then she straightened. Claudia was looking up to her; she needed to pull herself together, be someone to look up to. “I’ll, uh, I’ll wait outside till she feels strong enough to leave, then. I’ll hail us a cab. If she needs anything else, or if she wants to stay here overnight, just text me, okay?” When Claudia nodded, Myka turned and strode towards the stairs. The group of Omegas opened like a flower to let her through. 

Helena was silent on the cab ride, silent in the hotel lobby, silent as they rode the elevator up to their rooms. Myka had asked for two twins – Artie would be apoplectic enough over having to shell out for a hotel stay, no need to aggravate him by booking three singles. Whatever Helena wanted – solitude, bunking with Claudia, even bunking with Myka in a pinch – was fine with her and could be accommodated with two rooms.

At first, Helena didn’t reply when Myka asked her. When Myka, tired now beyond description, turned to Claudia and asked her to ask Helena – who knew if that was what the woman needed; Myka was past caring – that’s when Helena blinked, shook herself slightly, and inhaled sharply through her nose. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather be on my own tonight.”

“Alright,” Myka said, handing her the first room’s key cards. “We’ll be right next door if you need anything.” She barely waited for Helena’s nod of acknowledgement before she turned and headed for her door. She heard a low-voiced conversation behind her, then Claudia’s hasty footsteps. She didn’t pay her any attention, but focused on opening the door, finding the key card slot that turned on the lights, and sinking onto the nearest of the two beds. She allowed herself a moment of closing her eyes, but when she opened them again, Claudia was at the foot of the bed, worrying her hands. “What,” Myka asked flatly.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea to leave H.G. alone tonight,” Claudia said in a small voice. 

“She said she wanted to be,” Myka said. “She knows her own mind best; we gotta trust that.”

“I don’t know, though, I really don’t.” Claudia looked extremely doubtful.

“And _I,”_ Myka countered, “don’t feel too good about leaving _you_ alone tonight, after what happened this afternoon, okay?” She regretted her words when Claudia’s face fell horribly. “Hey, I’m sorry,” she relented. “I didn’t mean to remind you. Really, though, I think someone should stay with you. If you’d rather be with Helena instead, ask her if she’s okay with it. Fine by me, just don’t badger her, alright?”

Claudia bit her lip. “I… I was thinking why don’t we make it a sleepover?” she said in a rush. 

“Claudia,” Myka said patiently, “this is about what Helena wants. Okay? She’s been the one who was just bombarded by fourteen Alphas to do their bidding; she needs to have her agency reaffirmed. I’m not gonna,” she stopped and shook her head, “I am _not_ gonna push anything on her she doesn’t want. I know you want to help her and be there for her,” she added in a more conciliatory tone. She briefly touched Claudia’s hands, which were still wrestling with one another. “And that’s a good impulse. But you gotta trust people to tell you how you can help them. And the best way to do that is to listen to them, okay?”

Claudia bit her lips. She looked as though she wanted to say something, but then turned aside. “Okay.”

“Out with it,” Myka sighed. 

“It’s just-” Claudia began, turning back to her immediately. “You know how you always say that communication isn’t just what people say, it’s how they say it? Tone of voice, body language, that kind of thing? And that that can say something completely different from what the person is actually saying?”

Myka gave her a quick smile. Claudia wasn’t wrong. “True,” she said. “Just one thing: when you judge that, be careful that you’re not projecting your own wishes onto them, okay?”

“Yeah, but-” again, Claudia stopped, but then went on without Myka’s prompting, “but… like… you can also take that too far, right? Like, maybe it’s possible to ignore a body language signal because you’re afraid you might be projecting. Right?”

Myka bit her lip. “That has been known to happen, yes. Do you think that’s happening now?” Let Claudia see how tough of a call that was to make. 

“I don’t know,” Claudia said immediately, and pleadingly shook her hands out. “I really, truly don’t know. I’m just… I’m just worried.”

Myka nodded. “It’s hard seeing people who are usually so put together fall apart, right?”

“Yes!”

“Claud, I get that, I really do. But that’s a fact of life, you know? And it doesn’t make that person any weaker, any lesser; it just means they’re human. Everyone has stuff they fall apart over, including me,” she added with raised eyebrows. She knew that Claudia had been about to claim the contrary. “And everyone has their way of dealing with that stuff. And hey, I don’t think it’s out of character for Helena to deal with it on her own, you know?”

Claudia weighed her head. “I see what you mean,” she said finally. “I just…”

Myka sighed again. “You know what? If you’re really this uncertain, go over and ask. She’s the expert on how she feels like, after all. All we can do here is hypothesize.”

“What?” Claudia squeaked. “You mean I-? You mean _now? Me?”_

Myka shrugged. “Yep.”

Claudia blinked. Then she straightened her spine, straightened her jacket, and took in a deep breath. “Hokay.” And out the door she marched. 

Myka smiled after her. Out of the whole shit show that this retrieval had been, this was perhaps the most gratifying outcome; seeing Claudia grow as an agent. 

She did expect the knock on the door a few minutes later – Claudia hadn’t taken a keycard. What she didn’t expect was to see Helena behind the redhead.


	9. Chapter 9

Too stunned to say anything, Myka stood back and let Claudia and Helena into the room.

“Apologies,” Helena was saying. “I just…” Clearly agitated, she ran her hands through her hair. “I’m afraid I was getting a bit stuck in my own thoughts. I could use some company, if you two don’t mind.”

“Sure,” Myka said, because what else could she say? She nodded her chin towards the little desk-and-chair combo. “Have a seat. Do you need anything? Food, water? I don’t know if they have room service, but-”

“Oh, I’m fine, thank you,” Helena said, impeccable as always as she sat down with perfect posture. And suddenly, Myka understood – this was how Helena coped. Manners were a framework to cling to, clear instructions on how to behave in any situation. 

Myka nodded. “Alright,” she said, “if that changes, just let me know. Claudia, you too, okay? I’m well aware we haven’t had dinner.” And her own stomach was complaining, but – mind over matter was _her_ way of coping. 

“I, uh… I am a bit peckish,” Claudia said, almost timidly. “Sorry.”

“Not to worry,” Helena replied immediately, and started rifling through the desk drawer. “Ah, there we go.” She held up the room service menu with a perfectly imitated smile. 

Myka didn’t know if Claudia had done it to distract Helena or because she’d heard Myka’s stomach growling, or because she herself truly _was_ hungry, but going through the menu and making small talk while they waited for their food to arrive did serve to put Helena a bit at ease. It wasn’t until Myka smelled her food that she realized just how fucking hungry she was – she tore into her steak, manners be damned, and wondered if it would even be enough to fill her up.

“Sorry,” she mumbled halfway through. “Really hungry.”

Claudia and Helena, who both were eating in a much more restrained manner, grinned at her. A few bites later, Claudia started to give her some slight ‘hungry Alpha’ ribbing, which Myka pointedly ignored. 

Then, when they had all finished their food, Myka leaned back and sighed. “Okay,” she said, “team lead question – anyone need to debrief? Talk about what happened? Or would you rather not – fine by me too.”

Helena had clamped her mouth shut, but then she shook herself and said, “I… I appreciate what you did for me today, Myka.”

“You saved my life with the grappler thing,” Myka countered. She’d seen that one coming from a mile off, and she was prepared. “Least I could do.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Helena insisted. “You could have engaged the Alphas in that dorm, and I don’t doubt you would have come out the winner-”

“No I wouldn’t,” Myka said with a scoffing laugh. “Didn’t you hear them? Don’t you realize? I might be an Alpha, yeah, but among Alphas, I’m as low on the hierarchy as you can possibly get.”

“Myka, what-” Claudia began, then stopped herself, blushing fiercely. “Forget it,” she mumbled, “sorry. None of my business.”

Helena looked first at Claudia, then at Myka, with true confusion on her face.

Myka sighed. “Look, you know I’m trans,” she told Helena in explanation. “I mean it’s not like you haven’t seen me naked, yeah? Assigned male at birth, went on puberty blockers age twelve, planned to start transition at seventeen, presented as Alpha two months before my birthday,” she listed in a sing-song voice. Then she grew serious and added, “Alphas _hate_ male-to-female Alphas. Well, not all of them,” she amended, “but the kind of Alpha in that dorm today? _Hate_ us. Hate me. Hate non-binary Alphas too; hate anyone who doesn’t fit their idea of what a male Alpha is supposed to be. I was not surprised when that guy called me names, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have won out against them; not against fourteen, and certainly not on blockers.” 

Claudia’s eyes were brimming. “He’s an asshole,” she said darkly. “They all are. Myka, don’t give a shit what they say, you’re awesome, okay? And… and thanks for… for telling me. Telling us.”

Myka shook her head – now she was confused. “But… I mean, Claudia, you knew though, right? I mean it’s not like… I mean I don’t wear a gaff or anything; I don't… hide it. You must’ve… you know, seen.”

“Well, yeah, but you might have been packing; what do I know?” Claudia said, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

Tears sprang into Myka’s eyes at the kid’s unabashed acceptance. “Fuck,” she pressed out and hid her face. 

Claudia flew off her bed to flutter around Myka. “No, no, no,” she said, “no, you don’t, okay? Myka, I mean it, you’re awesome and I don’t care what equipment you have or don’t have or whatever, just… c’mon, don’t cry, okay? Helena, help me out over here.”

“No,” Myka said wildly. The last thing she wanted was anyone seeing her like this, Helena seeing her like this. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, swallowing until she had her tears under control. “I’m okay. I’m good. Really, thanks, I’m good.” She sniffed one last time. 

A handkerchief – an actual, cotton, pressed, _monogrammed_ handkerchief – was held out to her. Myka stared at it for a moment, stared at Helena for a moment, then took it wordlessly to wipe her face and, surreptitiously, self-consciously, blow her nose.

“Keep it,” Helena said with just the perfect little smirk to dismiss any embarrassment that Myka might feel. “You can owe me.”

Claudia giggled. Then she rubbed Myka’s arm awkwardly. “Hey, you really okay?”

Myka nodded. “Promise,” she said, and stuffed the handkerchief in her pocket. 

“Okie-dokes,” Claudia said, and returned to her bed. “I mean, if we’re in the gratitude category right now, then I gotta say, thanks, H.G., for saving my life.”

“Of course,” Helena said immediately. “I’m just glad I had the necessary knowledge.”

Claudia gave a laugh. “Yeah, me too, man. Me too.” She leaned back against the headboard and crossed her legs at her ankles. Letting out a long breath, she said, “Man, this retrieval was something, huh? They’re not always like this, right?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Myka said, trying to make light, “I’d rate this one an eight out of ten for danger to life and limb, but I’d say that eight out of ten retrievals fit that bill, so…” she shrugged. 

“Are you for real?” Claudia asked. She gulped. “You and Pete always make it sound… I don’t know, easy?”

Myka gave her a half-smile. “Yeah, you know, people tend to do that, when they’re safe back home. Bit of boasting, too, as far as Pete is concerned.”

Claudia snorted. “As though _you_ wouldn’t, Captain Best Shot in the Secret Service.”

“It’s not boasting if it’s true,” Myka said diffidently. 

Helena raised a hand to her mouth and gave a little cough. 

Myka shot her a half-glare. “It’s not,” she insisted, pouting maybe a bit more pronounced than she typically would. If it made Helena laugh after a day like today, Myka would happily play ‘wronged by the world’ for all she was worth.

“Seriously, though,” Claudia said, “it’s, ah… it’s different out here, isn’t it. Not that I mind,” she added a bit too quickly, “it’s just, uh…”

“Claudia, you almost died,” Myka said, in the gentlest tones she could find to soften her words. “It’s totally okay to be spooked, you know.”

The young woman swallowed. “Yeah, alright. Okay.” 

Myka saw that Claudia was fighting tears, and nodded internally. Bound to happen, after a scare like that. She wordlessly held her arms out, and Claudia scrambled off her bed again and all but hurled herself into Myka’s embrace. “It’s okay, Claud,” Myka murmured, hugging her tightly.

Helena fidgeted, drawing Myka’s gaze. She cleared her throat and cast a look at the door. “Should I…”

Before Myka could reply, though, Claudia extricated one arm and thrust it out towards Helena in silent appeal.

Helena’s eyebrows rose and she looked at Myka, who shrugged and shuffled to the side – the bed was a twin, but it’d hold all three of them sitting up, if that was what Claudia wanted. Helena gingerly sat down behind Claudia and stroked the young woman’s back, keeping well clear of Myka’s arms.

Myka was glad about it. Even with Claudia between them, the air felt thick with too many unanswered questions, too many unspoken words, and now – with Claudia in the middle – really wasn’t the time to bring them up, was it. Sure, yeah, part of Myka wanted to hold Helena the same way she was holding Claudia now, wanted to at least offer comfort if Helena wanted it, and then another part of her thought back to that night in the gym and how Myka had snapped at Helena, and she dropped the whole notion like a hot potato. Highly dubitable that Helena wanted any comfort from Myka right now, right? Even if she looked a bit envious around the eyes as she helped Myka console Claudia. 

Oh, to hell with it. Myka was team lead, after all, and Helena a member of her team. “Are _you_ okay?” she asked quietly.

And then Helena’s eyes filled, and Claudia sat up, and somehow they found themselves in a three-way hug with Claudia’s arms around Helena, and Myka’s arms around Claudia, and Helena’s hands in front of her eyes because she seemed to deal just as well with tears in front of other people as Myka did.

Myka knew that Alphas, just like Omegas, could release calming pheromones, the olfactory equivalent of the reassuring hug, the ‘there, there’, the confirmation that everything was alright. That was precisely what Helena had done on that first day – or third, rather – and it was precisely what Myka had asked her not to do, and precisely what Myka would rather bite off her tongue than do now. 

Tears ran their course – they always did. These would, too. Betas did it this way all the time, after all. 

“Man, I’m shot,” Claudia said when her tears had ceased. “Tired, I mean,” she added quickly when Helena flinched. “Sorry, figure of speech. Sorry. I’m, uh-” she pointed towards the bathroom, and Helena nodded and let her go, and so did Myka. Claudia disentangled herself carefully and left.

Myka cleared her throat. “Are you… feeling better?”

Helena inhaled, held the breath for a moment, then nodded on the exhale. “Almost losing Claudia was… a bit of a scare,” she said.

Myka’s stomach plummeted, and she inwardly cursed herself for forgetting that part over the whole Alpha dorm mess. “Yeah,” she said, feeling that that was the lamest response that she could possibly have given, but she had no idea what to say to that. “Um, anything I can do? I mean,” she quickly added, so that Helena wouldn’t get the wrong idea, “I mean, I’m lead on this one, and your well-being is my responsibility, that’s where I’m coming from.”

Helena bit her lip. “If… if I could stay here tonight,” she said hesitantly, “if Claudia agrees, of course.”

Myka eyed the two twin beds doubtfully, but before she could say anything, Helena went on. 

“I’d just sit up,” she said. “I haven’t been sleeping much anyway; Doctor Calder said it is due to the bronzing. I… if it would make you uncomfortable, or Claudia, of course I won’t, but-” she dropped her gaze and fell silent.

“But you could keep an eye on her if you stayed, right?” Myka asked. Helena nodded, eyes still fixed on her hands. “Fine with me,” Myka went on, “if it’s fine with Claudia. And if you’re sure that it won’t bother you to sit in that chair all night; it doesn’t look too comfortable, but that’s your call.” 

She wasn’t quite sure why this seemed so important to Helena, but if the woman wanted to sit in a tiny hotel chair all night, who was Myka to tell her no? Myka could sleep in almost any circumstances, and if Claudia didn’t object, let Helena stay if she wanted to. 

It would be good to have her – have both of them, Myka hastily amended – where Myka was close by, too, in case anything happened. And if someone argued ‘well, what could possibly happen in a hotel room’, they hadn’t been working for the Warehouse all that long, right?

Right.

Nothing to do at all with Myka’s breath running short at the idea of Helena being on her own where Myka couldn’t protect her. Nothing at all.

Claudia, of course, was on board with the sleepover idea – it had been hers in the first place, after all. Even if what Helena suggested wasn’t all that much of a sleepover but more of a watch-over, so to speak. Myka didn’t care, as long as everyone was fine with the suggestion, things could proceed and that meant that she could get some sleep, even if Helena didn’t. Nightlight, fine, she didn’t mind, no problem, go ahead.

A few hours later, a whimper woke her. She’d always been a light sleeper. On the bed opposite, Claudia was softly snoring, and in the chair-

Helena was biting the knuckle of her thumb. Her eyes were wild, and resigned when they met Myka’s. When Myka made to rise, Helena shook her head emphatically, and mouthed ‘It’s alright.’

Myka scowled back. Helena was very obviously not okay. The woman was tense all over, and if she’d been that tense for the last – Myka checked the clock on the bedside table – three and a half hours, she’d have hell to pay in the morning. She got up quietly, checked on Claudia – still sleeping – and knelt down beside Helena’s chair. “Do you want the bed?” she asked quietly. “You look awful.”

“Thanks,” Helena grumped, under her breath. “I’m fine.”

“Stop saying that when it’s obviously not the case,” Myka sighed. “C’mon, Helena, tell me what I can do. If I can do anything, just let me know, alright?”

Helena’s eyes swam with tears, and even in the dim glow of the nightlight, Myka could see the traces of more tears on her cheeks. Then Helena swayed in her chair, and Myka reached out to steady her, and then they were hugging, with zero intervening steps from one situation to the other. 

Myka was positive that she wasn’t emitting pheromones, reasonably sure that Helena wasn’t either, but it still felt right, more so than anything had in the past days – except, perhaps, that grappler moment, and they’d been in each other’s arms then, too. 

“Okay, question,” Myka said, in an even quieter voice now because her mouth was that much closer to Helena’s ear. “Whenever we do this, it feels good to me. Like we’re doing the right thing, same way that drinking water when you’re thirsty is right. You too?” Helena’s head, pressed into her neck, nodded. “And I don’t think it’s pheromones,” Myka went on. “I’m not emitting. You?” Helena’s head shook side-to-side. “So how about we just roll with it, at least for tonight? No strings attached, and we can talk about it later as much as you like or not at all, whatever feels better. I’m not trying to take advantage, I swear. I promise. And if you don’t want to, that’s totally fine too.”

Helena had stiffened over the course of Myka’s words, and now leaned back. Myka let her go immediately. Helena’s face was stormy. “Are you seriously propositioning me?” she asked.

Myka gaped. “What? No!” She caught herself and lowered her voice. “Shit, no.” Sitting back on her haunches, she ran a hand through her hair. “No, of course not. Sorry, I didn’t really make that clear, did I?”

Helena shook her head wordlessly. 

Myka gave a silent groan, dropping her face into her hands. Then she looked up at Helena. “You know what, never mind,” she said, and stood up. Her face was flaming. “There’s no saving this now, is there. I’ll just…” she gestured towards the door. “I’ll just take the other room, okay, and you can have my bed, to watch over Claudia without contorting yourself too much.”

One corner of Helena’s mouth twitched. “What _were_ you suggesting?”

Myka shook her head. “Just…” She broke off again. “I can’t even make that sound innocent now. Just… just sharing. The,” she cleared her throat, “the bed. I mean. Sleeping, or just lying there, or whatever. No sex involved whatsoever.” She bit her lip, cheeks still burning with embarrassment. “Sounds familiar, probably, and I’m sorry I jumped down your throat when you offered.”

“Don’t mention it,” Helena said, touching Myka’s hand briefly, reassuringly. Yet she didn’t look up, nor did she say anything further.

“I just… I just thought it might help,” Myka said, feeling helpless. She turned to go.

And then Helena’s hand was on hers again, but not briefly. This time it was grasping, holding. “Please,” Helena said. “Don’t go.” She, too, cleared her throat. “I need to – how do you say it? – pep talk myself into this, but…” Her fingers closed around Myka’s wrist. “I agree; it feels right. I can’t deny that, however much I want to. And I shall try and not give into my bitterness about that for tonight.”

“We can definitely talk about it some other day,” Myka offered. With a lump in her throat, she added, “I don’t want you to feel bitter. I know exactly what you mean, and I don’t want that for either of us, and if it would make you-” 

Helena’s fingers squeezed briefly, and Myka fell silent. Then Helena rose, in one smooth movement, and slipped into Myka’s space and put her head on Myka’s shoulder, and Myka’s arms came up and around, and Helena’s arms landed on her waist and it was _perfect_. Myka’s breath stopped and re-started with a stutter, that was how perfect it was, and Myka found herself longing, longing for what she already had, found her arms pulling Helena in, found Helena rising slightly to follow Myka’s motion, found Helena’s body _mold_ itself into Myka’s embrace – and found that against all her fears of how this moment might turn out, she didn’t want to jump Helena’s bones. Like, at all. She wanted to just hold her, soothe her, protect her from all that was wrong in the world; Alpha jocks, artifacts, idiot Regents, all of them. She knew Helena needed none of that; Helena was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. But right now, Helena definitely needed reassuring that everything was okay, and Myka could provide that. 

“Alright,” she heard Helena breathe next to her ear. “Alright.” Helena pulled away and lowered herself, and Myka loosened her arms immediately to accommodate her. 

“I can take the wall side of the bed,” Myka said. “I won’t be in your way if you want to get out, literally or figuratively. If at any point you start feeling like this is a bad idea, by all means leave or make me leave, okay?”

Helena’s eyes were black in the dim light. “You’re not at all what I was expecting, Myka Bering,” she said. 

Myka gave her a crooked smile. “Sorry to disappoint,” she said. 

“I didn’t say I was disappointed, did I,” Helena gave back. 

And before Myka had a chance to work out how she felt about _that_ , she found herself being the big spoon to Helena’s little spoon, and that was so irrefutably right that she fell asleep right there and then.


	10. Chapter 10

They did not talk about it the next morning. 

They did not talk about it the next night, or the day after that, or the week after that. 

Myka wasn’t good at talking about things, and neither was Helena, it seemed. And while neither of them avoided each other per se, they both strictly dodged any physical contact. 

Artie wasn’t too happy about how the retrieval had gone; he still didn’t trust Helena out in the field, so Myka and Pete, and occasionally Claudia, were sent out on every ping that they got while Helena did inventory – there was always inventory, that was another mantra, not just of Myka’s. 

Myka was mostly okay with how things were; she didn’t have to think about how she felt about that night, she didn’t have to talk about it, and with Helena not in the field, chances were slim that there would ever be a need for another night like that. 

She’d lived all her life without feeling that kind of right at someone’s touch, she could go on doing so, right?

Right. 

And then H.G. Wells’ house in London, England was broken into. According to the police, nothing was stolen, but since H.G. Wells was a Warehouse agent, it pinged nevertheless.

“Is there anything in there that anybody might want to steal?” Artie asked as they all gathered in his office. “That they might have stolen without the police noticing?”

Helena weighed her head. “A number of things, I suppose,” she said, “but I have no way of knowing what Charles had kept and what not.”

“Anything that we should know about?” Artie asked further. 

“The Imperceptor Vest,” Helena replied immediately. “A vest that, in theory, can make the wearer move fast enough to be invisible to the naked eye.”

“In theory?”

“Well, I never found an energy source strong enough to power it.” Helena tapped her finger against her lips, then snapped them. “If I understand contemporary physics right, antimatter might do it.”

“That’s not contemporary, lady,” Pete interjected, “that’s Star Trek.”

“Nope,” Claudia told him, “Josh’s working on it right now, at CERN.”

And there it was. Myka barely dared to breathe. She exchanged a look with Artie and knew he’d gotten that whiff too, that trace of something – not pheromones, just an idea. 

“Get in touch with him,” Artie told Claudia, slowly, musingly, stalking that whiff by thinking out loud. “See if he knows if there was any kind of breach lately, at CERN or in the other particle accelerators in the world.”

“Wouldn’t that kind of thing get a ton of press?” Pete asked.

Artie shook his head, still in slow motion. “No,” he said, his eyes staring into empty space, “they’d keep that _out_ of the press, but someone on the inside might know, or notice an uptick in security.” Then his eyes focused on Helena. “Tell me everything, and I mean _everything_ , you know about the Imperceptor Vest and where it is right now.”

What followed was a thirty-minute impromptu lecture, complete with chalk drawings on Artie’s blackboard. Helena’s words were precise, her sketches fit to print, and Myka noticed that Claudia had a distinctly smitten look on her face until the young agent was distracted by her phone buzzing. “I hid it in a room in Charles’ house that is only accessible via a secret panel,” Helena finished, and Claudia had to bite her lips to keep from squealing, Myka saw. “I could jot down how to open that, but wouldn’t it be better I go there in person to retrieve it and bring it back here?”

Artie shook his head brusquely. “You’re not going out in the field,” he said. “Can’t risk it.”

Then Claudia, who’d been checking her phone, said, “This is Josh; he says he’s received a ton of new clearance yesterday and isn’t quite sure why; he doesn’t have a project lined up right now.”

There it was. Myka pounced. “Clearance that’d get him to where they keep the antimatter?” 

Claudia typed that question into her phone. They all waited, grouped around her now as the three dots wiggled in her messaging app. Then the phone chimed as a ‘yes, why?’ appeared. 

Myka exhaled softly. 

“Tell him to refuse, or at least draw things out as much as he can if someone asks him to go and grab antimatter,” Artie instructed Claudia. “Tell him I’ll be right along.” Then he looked up and across the group clustered around Claudia’s chair. His lips twisted in distaste. “I can’t go alone,” he said begrudgingly. “This has James written all over it; I need backup. Fine,” he grunted, and snapped his fingers at Pete. “Pete, you’re with me; Myka, you take H.G. to London, see if the Vest’s still there – if it is, protect it at all costs; if it’s not, tell me the instant,” he emphasized the word with a stabbing of his finger, “you see the empty coat hanger, understand?”

Myka nodded. 

He turned to Claudia. “Claudia, get us flights, and ramp up every single safety feature. I’ll call in Mrs. Frederic; she can tell you about all of them and back you up in here. This is _not_ a drill, everyone; if James MacPherson gets the Vest, he can get in or out of here as he pleases and we’ll be looking at empty shelves in less than a week.” He looked at each of them in turn, then flapped his arms. “What are you standing around here for? Go, go, go!”

They scrambled. 

* * *

Myka hated transcontinental flights. She never had enough legroom, and that meant that while she was still able to get some sleep, she woke up cramped and grumpy. Helena was equally appalled at the lack of space, and vowed to bolster the Warehouse travel funds with her own back pay if necessary to ensure they never had to travel economy again, internationally anyway. 

Helena barely ceased talking for the first leg of the two-flight journey, and her leg was in constant motion next to Myka, jittering up and down with nervous energy. Halfway to the East Coast, Myka looked at it pointedly. “You gonna run a few laps around Atlanta airport to help with that?” she asked.

Helena froze almost comically, then sucked in her lip and blushed. “Sorry,” she said. 

“I get it,” Myka said, “you’re nervous. Still, though-” 

“Myka, I am _petrified,”_ Helena interrupted her. “We’re talking about the house where they took my child from me.”

Myka stared at her. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“Because it is the most sensible solution to have me along,” Helena said forcefully. She ran a hand through her hair – by now Myka knew that one to be one way of self-soothing. That Helena’s hand was shaking, though, that was unusual. “I don’t have to like it,” Helena went on, “for it to make sense, do I? And don’t worry, I’ll handle it.” She huffed a bitter breath. “Mind over matter, like you say. Only a few old memories. Had a hundred years and more to deal with them, what?” And then she conjured up a smile that raised the hairs on Myka’s neck it was so false. 

“Helena-”

“I’m on top of it,” Helena said, and that was the end of that. No more leg jiggles, but Myka noticed that Helena didn’t really watch the inflight movie she’d called up either. No, Helena was staring fixedly ahead, so stuck in her own thoughts that when the flight attendants came with dinner, she let out a small yelp of surprise. 

When dinner had been eaten and the trays had been cleared away, Myka got ready for sleep. “Mind if I put the armrest up?” she asked. “They’re at just the wrong height for my arm.”

Helena nodded tersely. She’d called up another movie and wasn’t watching that either. When Myka had boxed the puny little airline pillow into the shape she needed it to be, she leaned her head against it and tried to relax, and if her arm fell just into the crack between her leg and Helena’s, surely that was pure coincidence. And if her hand fell, palm up, just shy of Helena’s knee, surely that was pure coincidence too. 

And when, a few minutes later as Myka was just about to drop off to sleep, cool fingers curled themselves into hers, that was absolutely pure coincidence as well. 

* * *

London Heathrow was a shock to the senses at the best of times, and Myka knew Helena hadn’t slept a wink, so she took the lead as they headed through the airport and into the city, only stopping once along the way for a stiff cup of tea at a chain coffee shop that would certainly not wake any Victorian-age memories. 

“Is it weird?” Myka asked, nodding at the street they were overlooking through the café’s windows. “The old and the new right next to each other?”

“Weird doesn’t even begin to describe it,” Helena said with a grimace. Her teeth were clenched so hard that Myka could see her jaw muscles knot from where she sat, and her fingers were strangling a teaspoon. 

“We’ll make this as quick as we can, okay?” Myka tried to reassure her. “We can get going right now if you like; get to-go cups for these,” she nodded at their drinks, “and drink as we walk. It’s only a block from here.”

“I _know,”_ Helena said, casting Myka a dirty look. “London hasn’t changed _that_ much.”

Myka ducked her head, duly chastened. “I’m sorry,” she said, reprimanding herself. 

Helena sighed and tossed the spoon onto the table. “Let’s get this over with,” she muttered and stood. 

They were met by the house’s warden at the front gate; the woman said something about an Interpol collaboration that Myka just rolled with – obviously Claudia’s cover story for requesting the short-term closure of the house for the day. “Sorry for the inconvenience,” Myka said in her best American non-committal delivery. 

It earned her an incredulous look from Helena as the warden handed Myka the keys and walked away, but Helena refrained from commenting. Her face hardened as they both turned towards the entrance. Then Helena took the keys from Myka’s hands, squared her shoulders, and unlocked the door.

* * *

And now James Mac-fucking-Pherson had Myka in a chokehold and Helena under his control. Why Artie had refrained from telling her that the man was a fucking _Alpha_ , Myka had no idea, but here they were; Helena almost catatonic under the influence of his pheromones – fuck, he _reeked_ of them – and Myka with the barrel of her own Tesla against her temple ‘just as further incentive’. 

“Helena, you can fight this,” Myka said imploringly as Helena led them to a study or office or something; a wood-paneled room with the stereotypical green-velvet topped desk in it. 

“This needs two people doing it simultaneously,” Helena said without giving Myka a glance. Her eyes were fixed on MacPherson, simpering in a way that made Myka sick. “The shutters over there,” she nodded to the far window, “and on this window here need to be closed simultaneously.”

Myka could feel MacPherson think behind her. Then, still holding her neck in his stranglehold, he made his way to the far window. “You’ll know when,” he told Helena in a voice that had Myka ball her fists even harder. 

Helena gave him a vacant smile, and Myka could have screamed. Her arm and MacPherson’s moved in unison, and Myka wanted to vomit right there and then. 

A panel clicked open between the two windows. “Et voilà,” Helena gestured, with the ghost of her usual grace. 

MacPherson shuffled himself and Myka closer to the panel. “And what is this?” he asked. 

“An etirovac switch,” Helena answered at once, and Myka had barely a second to work that one out before Helena flicked the switch and nixed gravity in the room. 

She head-butted MacPherson’s face as they both flew up to the ceiling; a Tesla beam sizzled past her ear as it missed her, and then she had her knee in his stomach and her elbow on the back of his neck and vomit spluttered out of his mouth in big, free-floating blobs, and Helena called out “De-activating!” and flicked the switch that she’d been hanging on to, and Myka somehow managed to land on hands and feet while MacPherson and his puke splattered to the ground. 

“Dreadful,” Helena commented primly, shaking herself, and Myka could have kissed her. Instead she took her handcuffs to MacPherson’s wrists while Helena sprayed something up his nose. “My newest invention,” Helena said. “Should keep his pheromones in check for at least twenty-four hours. Suppresses _and_ inhibits; I should probably patent it – might make a mint.” And then she turned, bent over, and vomited right onto the carped. 

In two quick steps, Myka was at her side. She quickly got hold of Helena’s hair and, when Helena had finished, eased her into the desk chair. “Here,” she said, handing Helena the Tesla. “I’ll go grab you some water. That okay? Or do you need me to stay?”

“The Vest,” Helena said, still white as a sheet. “Make sure it’s still here first.” Her hand pointing the Tesla at MacPherson’s head was rock-steady though.

Myka cursed under her breath, then nodded. “You’re right, my bad. What do I do?”

“Second drawer down on the right,” Helena said, nodding at the desk behind her. “Open it, empty it out, turn it over – there’s a panel underneath with a key that fits in the keyhole over the switch I just pulled.”

“Yeah, speaking of,” Myka said as she did as instructed, “freaking _Cavorite?!”_

“I’m glad you picked up on that,” Helena said. “I didn’t know what else to do. Teslas…” she swallowed and cleared her throat, and grimaced at the taste of bile. “Teslas are quite lethal at that distance, and I… I couldn’t…”

“Hey, it’s alright,” Myka said, touching Helena’s shoulder quickly as she walked towards the panel, key in hand. “I’m still alive, and you didn’t fall under his pheromones after all. As far as I’m concerned, this is a win. Oh, and top-notch acting, by the way. Okay,” she said then, inserting the key. “This gonna yank me up to the ceiling again?”

Helena’s smile was feeble, but at least not of the vacant sort. “Nothing of the kind,” she said. “It’ll open a hidden door; the Vest is behind that.”

“MacPherson still unconscious?”

“Indeed.” 

“Alright,” Myka said, and turned the key. A hidden door indeed swung open, and behind it, a tailor’s dummy was clad in a metal-and-leather vest. 

MacPherson lurched, trying to get upright, but Helena tesla’d him, stone cold and for a good bit longer than strictly necessary. 

“Get that fucker where it hurts,” Myka muttered in vicious approval, and then took out her Farnsworth, dialing for Artie. “Artie, the Vest is still here and we got MacPherson apprehended,” she said the moment the connection cleared. 

“What!” Artie barked. “You what!” Myka turned the Farnsworth around to show him the unconscious figure. Artie breathed an actual, audible sigh of relief. “Okay,” he said, “okay. Good. Good work. Good. I’ll, ah… I’ll talk to Mrs. Frederic, let her sort out how we’ll get him to the US. Is there anywhere you can detain him safely until then? A blocker room, preferably?”

“Oh, now you tell me!” Myka was suddenly furious. “Artie, this _has_ to _stop,”_ she said, trying to keep her calm. “You need to tell me these things; either of us could have been fucking killed because we didn’t know!” 

Artie’s mouth worked. “Long story,” he said in the end. “Well, is there?”

“We just need a lockable room,” Myka said, “Helena has some kind of nose-spray blockers she says are good for twenty-four hours.”

“She what!” 

Myka was done with his tone of voice. “Yes, she does, Artie, and she just saved both our asses, okay, so don’t you dare say anything against her. I am done with you not trusting her, that has to stop too, you hear me? Let me know what Mrs. Frederic says.” And Myka ended the call, snapping the Farnsworth shut and barely refraining from throwing it across the room.

“Thank you,” Helena said behind her.

“Huh?” It wasn’t the most erudite statement, but Myka was still furious, and gratitude was the last thing she expected. 

“For standing up for me. I appreciate it more than you could possibly know.” Helena took a deep breath and stood up. “Let’s take him downstairs. If this building does have a blocker room, it is probably down there, and it should be the safest place – not that I don’t trust my own invention,” she added with a hint of her usual panache, “but because they’re usually quite sturdy, are they not?”

Myka nodded, feeling two steps behind by how well Helena was handling all of this. She debated saying something along those lines, but decided against it and simply hauled MacPherson halfway upright. “Keep the Tesla on him,” she said. “Don’t worry about me getting a dose, okay?”

“Aye-aye,” Helena said, with the same jaunty salute she’d given Myka at UC Tamalpais. “Down here,” she added, leading the way to the basement.

There was a sign for a blocker room at the foot of the stairs, and Myka shoved MacPherson into it none too gently. There was a massive radiator in it and she secured him to one of the pipes, then locked the door behind him. “Okay,” she said with a deep breath, and nodded at Helena. “Done and dusted.”

Her Farnsworth rang again; Artie informed her that a team of specialized LEOs would be with them ‘ASAP’ and to stay put until then. His voice was carefully neutral, and Myka equally carefully polite. When she looked up again, Helena was standing stiffly in the center of the hallway, looking decidedly green around the gills.

“Do you want to get out of here?” Myka offered. “It’s okay if you need your space; I’ll just stay down here if that’s the case.”

Helena looked torn. She shook her head, though, and said, “I’d rather not be by myself right now, but thank you for the offer.”

Myka nodded. “Okay. Let’s go back upstairs then?” When they arrived back on the ground floor, she asked, “Where do you want to wait? Is there any place that works for you?”

“Not really,” Helena said with a half-hearted laugh. “Not a single one of these rooms holds fond memories, exactly.”

“Well, maybe they’re using one of the rooms as, I don’t know, a break room or office or something,” Myka said, looking around for a do-not-enter sign. “I’ll go look, okay? That way you don’t have to see anything you don’t want to.”

“I… Would you mind awfully if I tagged along?”

“Of course not,” Myka said with a smile. “You really don’t wanna be alone, huh?”

Helena shook her head. Her whole body was tense as a whip, Myka noticed. She reached out her hand, and Helena took it without hesitation. Her fingers were cold as ice.

It took them a few false starts, but they did find a kitchen that looked vaguely eighties-like on the second floor. A table and a few chairs stood along one wall, and the cabinets on the other side yielded teabags and mugs. Myka filled the kettle and turned it on, feeling zero compunction about using any of it. Then she knelt next to Helena’s chair. 

“Hey,” she said, shaking Helena’s knees a little. “We did it, okay? You did it.”

“Don’t congratulate me until we’re out of here, please.” Helena cast a glance around the room. “I know I won’t be breathing freely until we are.”

Myka nodded. “I understand.” She stayed, hand on Helena’s knee, until the kettle boiled. “Give me a moment, okay?”

She had barely poured the water over the teabags when the doorbell rang and the door reverberated with a few knocks on top of that. “I’ll be right back, okay? Just hang on to the tea until then.”

Helena nodded, staring into nothingness. 

She hadn’t moved an inch when Myka came back ten minutes later. Mrs. Frederic had been with the officers, however the Caretaker had managed that, and had assured Myka, in a way that Myka had learned not to question, that she’d take care of everything. 

The steam from Helena’s tea mug curled around a face wet with tears that were silently falling. Myka gently took the mug from Helena’s hands. “Come on,” she said, “let’s get out of here.” 

She led Helena out of the house and into a cab and up into their hotel room with a heart filled to bursting with gentleness and worry. She had no idea how to help Helena deal with this; she’d gladly take a bullet or stop a driverless train, but this she had no clue how to handle, what to do to make it better.

Turns out she didn’t have to – the moment the hotel room closed behind them, Helena sank onto the bed and started crying in earnest, and it was the easiest thing in the world to sit down with her and hold her tight, and the second-easiest to keep her mouth shut and refrain from talking about anything. 

Myka knew she had to talk to Helena at some point, but today wasn’t it, that was for sure.


	11. Chapter 11

Myka awoke with a jolt. It was pitch dark around her, and somewhere, a phone was buzzing. 

The last thing that she remembered was finally finding some non-alcoholic drink at that fucking high school reunion – and then nothing. Fuck. Had the orange juice been spiked? She groaned, and it sounded weird, and she grabbed her forehead and that felt even weirder, and that fucking phone-

She found it, and answered it, and her world tilted at the sound of the voice that was coming out of her mouth.

She hadn’t sounded like that since high school.

Fuck, had she been thrown back in time?

Someone next to her moved and she scuttled off the bed so fast she dropped to the floor. Pain lanced through her knee, and she bit off a curse. If there was someone in bed with her, for whatever reason, they could maybe explain, but-

“Myka?” the person on the other end of the phone call said.

She froze. Only one person said her name that way, even if it was in her own voice. “Pete?” 

Three minutes later, she leaned against the outside of Pete’s bedroom door, having just ended the call with her partner that she’d somehow switched bodies with. And that was only the beginning of their problems.

Then the door behind her opened and she almost fell over. “What’s wrong?” Kelly asked, dressed only in one of Pete’s button-downs. 

Myka gaped at her for a moment, then remembered that, yes, there had been another person in the bed she’d just gotten out of. She snapped to. “That was… that was Myka,” she said, thoughts racing furiously. “She thinks she might have been blusted.” Fuck, she was breaking out in cold sweat. The thought of Pete being in her body at the best of times was… invasive, but the thought of Pete being in an Alpha body that had no control over its pheromones?

Even Kelly got that. “Mierda,” she muttered, then turned and went back into Pete’s room purposefully. “What are you standing around for?” she snapped at Myka. “C’mon, get going, we gotta help her!”

Another door opened – Helena. “What’s going on?”

Claudia, too, was in the hallway now. Myka quickly explained, and both of them grew round-eyed. 

Kelly, now fully dressed, stepped out of Pete’s room and slapped Myka across the – bare – chest. 

“Ow! Wh-”

“Get! Going!” 

Myka almost stumbled over her – well, Pete’s – feet getting into the room and finding clothes to wear. 

Two minutes later, everyone was out on the landing, even Leena. Except for one.

“Where’s Kelly?” Myka asked. 

“Gone ahead to her office,” Claudia said, “said she’d grab a few things and to meet her there.”

“I told her that I had Alpha blockers,” Helena offered, “but she said something about a dart gun?” Myka, who was in the middle of nervously rubbing the back of Pete’s neck, stopped dead. Helena looked over and her eyes widened momentarily. “Myka?” she asked incredulously.

Myka nodded Pete’s head.

Helena unleashed an impressive streak of swearwords. 

“The griffin,” Leena said. “Half this, half the other – it’s gotta be what whammied you, when you and Pete snagged it. I’ll go get it; I know where I shelved it. Meet you at Kelly’s practice in twenty.” And she took off down the stairs.

Myka insisted on driving – plopped the cherry top on the SUV’s roof and put the pedal to the metal as she, Kelly and Helena left Univille. The thought of herself being in a male body was giving her all kinds of black thoughts, but the thought of _Pete_ in _her_ body made her run cold; it’d been half an hour since his phone call by now, and while she’d told him to find the hotel’s blocker room, whoever had fucking blusted the drink probably had other ideas. 

Kelly stared at her – well, at Pete, from what Kelly knew – from the passenger seat. “You really like her, don’t you?” she asked, with an undertone that Myka recognized. She decided to try and head that off; Pete could thank her later, even if he’d been the one to persuade her to go to that fucking reunion.

“She’s my work partner,” she said curtly. “And yeah, I like her – _as_ a work partner, okay? That’s all. Kelly, I promise.” She couldn’t help but look in the rear view mirror at Helena, who was on the phone with Claudia and Leena, furiously typing away on her laptop and oblivious to the conversation in the front seats.

Kelly noticed. Her eyes narrowed for a second, then widened in recognition of… something. Myka had no idea what, and no mental capacity to care. “Oh,” Kelly said thoughtfully, and that didn’t help matters, but it was beside the point. 

Myka was breaking all kinds of speed records, and they arrived at the reunion hotel within the next half hour. There was the sound of breaking glass from inside. 

Helena grabbed Pete’s arm to stop Myka from running straight in. “The griffin is part of a pair, Leena informs me,” she said under her breath as Kelly raced to the car’s trunk and her equipment in it. “Robert Louis Stevenson’s Bookends. Claudia and Leena are trying to track the second one, but I have a feeling that whoever has it will come here – the griffin kept sliding around in its bag in the backseat, as if it was orienting itself towards its counterpart. If you can you deal with whatever’s going on inside, I’ll try and head towards whoever is coming.”

Myka pondered this for a moment, then shook her head. “Even with Kelly and her stun gun, I’d rather have you here as backup.”

“Are you-” Helena stopped herself as Kelly, now armed, joined them. “Is Myka that strong of an Alpha?”

“No, she’s just that hated,” Myka grated. “It sounds like a fight in there, and from what she’s told me, it’s probably going to be several against one.”

“That Tau thing again?” 

“Fuck, she’s a Tau?” Kelly asked, looking at her darts. “Could you have fucking told me earlier, for crying out loud? I brought the wrong darts; these are for estrogen-based Alphas, not testosterone.” She sighed. “Well, I better load the regular stun darts then. Tranqs work on everybody, after all.”

“I’ve got some blockers of my own,” Helena said quickly, starting to rummage through her pockets. “Inhalator delivery, though, not ranged weapon.” She gave Kelly an apologetic look. “We just need to get close enough to her to spray them in her face.” She handed one each to Kelly and Myka. “One squirt should do it; two to be safe. Overdose is not harmful but will only prolong the effects, don’t worry. They’ll work for the other Alphas, too.”

Myka nodded and, finally, she was off towards the hotel entrance. Then her view dimmed, everything shifted, and suddenly she was on the floor in a brightly lit room, being pummeled by at least three pairs of feet or fists at once.

Her body - and yes, it was _her_ body, thank god - was awash with fight, and she grabbed a foot that came her way, bent backwards with its momentum, and then _twisted_. There was a very gratifying crunch, a scream, and a sudden opening in the blows raining down on her. She got up with a snarl, keeping her center of gravity low. Someone tried to get the jump on her from behind and she ducked further, heaving them across her shoulder and flinging them aside. Her blood sang as whoever it was slid into the feet of onlookers. This was it, her element, a fight with clear opponents regardless of their numbers. This she knew how to do; she had made damn sure of that. Her fingers itched to finally, finally show these fuckers that they couldn’t mess with Myka Bering anymore. Someone was shouting at the back of the crowd but she didn’t care; much closer to her, someone was approaching, ducked, hands balled and stretched towards her, and she danced and met him halfway, grabbing, turning, _twisting_ again; he howled a very satisfying howl as he came away with a dislocated arm. She kicked him in the kidneys as he tried to get back up again, then turned in a circle, hands flexing, trying to keep all potential attackers in view, and then the crowd opened up and-

And her Omega was there, like a miracle, like an apparition, her sweet, sweet scent outshining even her beauty, and for a moment, Myka was distracted.

And then her perspective tilt-shifted again and she stumbled and watched, out of Pete’s eyes and from half a ballroom away, as Kurt Smoller tackled her body head-first.

“Pete!” she yelled, and started to sprint, trying to ignore the pain in his twisted knee. Fuck, being a Beta was hard – how did they do it?

Someone was following her, but she didn’t care; she was on Smoller, trying to listen to Pete’s body telling her how to wrestle a guy one-and-a-half time Pete’s size. Then she heard a ‘pop’, and a few breaths later, Smoller went slack in her arms.

“Anyone else?” she heard Kelly behind her. Myka turned and saw the woman stand across Kurt, sighting along the barrel of her dart gun. “Huh? Anyone?”

Kurt groaned, and Myka released him and got up on her knees next to her own body, which was blacked out. Helena was bent over it, administering the inhaler. “Is he alright?” Myka asked and then bit her tongue at the pronoun use. Well, couldn’t take it back now even if Kelly was looking oddly at her. At who Kelly thought was Pete, that was.

Helena just gave a distracted nod in reply to Myka’s question. 

“Police,” a voice called out from the entrance, “nobody move!”

Myka sighed. “Secret Service,” she called over Pete’s shoulder. “Badge’s in my back pocket!”

“Alright, mister, let’s see it then.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Myka muttered. Who knew when she was going to swap bodies with Pete again. Hands held away from Pete’s body, she slowly rose and turned. “I’m gonna take out my badge now, alright?” she told the cops, who – all twenty of them – were in full riot gear. No wonder, if they’d been called to break up an Alpha fight. 

“Nice and slow,” the nearest one said. Myka did as instructed. The cop took her badge, inspected it, lowered their gun. “What’s the situation, Agent Lattimer?” he asked.

“I need to isolate this one,” she said, nudging her own body with Pete’s foot. “If you could take care of the rest – I believe there’s at least one blusted drink around here, so look into the bartenders too.”

“Blusting?” Some of the cops were grabbing their weapons more tightly. Blusted Alphas – Omegas too, for that matter – were no laughing matter. “Thanks, Agent. We’ll get on it.” The team lead nodded at Myka and then turned and started issuing commands to his team.

“Alright,” Myka muttered, bending down to her unconscious body, “up we go.”

She managed to make it up the staircase and into her room before the now-familiar tilt started. 

And suddenly, she was back in Pete’s body again, and there was yet another fight going on. She must have missed a few minutes or so in her own unconscious body, with Pete’s unconscious mind in _his_ body probably being not much help. Helena and Kelly were laying into – Myka did a double take. The guard from the museum that the griffin had been stolen from. Then there was a flash, and it wasn’t the guard anymore but the thief – apparently no longer swapping bodies, but sharing the same space? She sucked in a breath; that didn’t bode well. She grabbed Pete’s Tesla.

“Kelly, Helena, duck,” she yelled, imbuing Pete’s voice with as much authority as she could. Then she knocked out the guard with a quick burst of electricity. The man fell backwards into the bathroom’s open door, right into the tub.

Pete really was a better shot at her with this thing. Damnit.

“What the hell is going on here?” Kelly said, panting. “Pete, what-”

“No time,” Myka said. “Whatever’s going on with this guy is what Pete and me got coming too. Helena, how do we stop it?”

“Wait what? Pete and-” Kelly began, and then gaped as realization dawned. “Vete par…”

“Helena,” Myka implored. She wasn’t feeling too good. 

Helena was feverishly going through the thief’s pockets. “The heads can be swapped,” she called out over her shoulder. “If I exchange-” she cursed as underneath her hands, the thief changed back to the museum guard. The man convulsed, thrashing in the tub.

Myka suddenly felt a pit open in her stomach – this had to be one of Pete’s vibes. “Helena, get out of there,” she said through gritted teeth. “Get out of there _now!”_

The man _screamed_ ; Helena called out something, then rushed out of the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her. 

There was a splat and the scream suddenly stopped.

Myka felt the world tilt again. She was back in her own body and tried to lift her head from the carpet, but she felt as though a rhinoceros had run her over, and slumped back down again. Another tilt, and she was on the sofa, working the head off the second bookend with fingers that felt wrong, feeling almost sick with impending doom. Another tilt, and she was on the sofa but her hands wouldn’t move at all and her ribs hurt like hell. She heard an odd sound from her right, like a subdued sob, and then there was a huge wrenching feeling as though she was being split apart in the middle and she thought, well, there goes the splat, and then her vision cleared and she was looking at a face full of Helena.

“Myka? Myka!” Helena sounded frantic.

Myka struggled to keep her eyes open. “Hel’na,” she murmured thickly. Fuck, what had _happened?!_

Helena burst into swearwords again, despite the tears that were running down her cheeks.

“What. The hell. Is going on?” Kelly asked, calm as a volcano point two seconds from eruption.

“Pete?” Myka asked. “Pete, are you okay?”

“I’ll never let you drive my body again,” Pete groused, and then groaned in pain. “Fuck, did you _run_ on this knee?”

Myka let her head sink back against the chair’s backrest and started laughing weakly. Her arms, as if acting on orders from someone else, closed around Helena’s shoulders and pulled the woman close. And then she remembered, and snatched her hands back where they belonged. “Sorry,” she stammered, “fuck, Helena, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t-”

Pete was talking to Kelly in a low, intent voice, but Helena- Helena was pulling herself together with a brittleness that was painful to watch. Myka wanted nothing more than to hug her again, but she couldn’t, could she, not when she’d been the one to pull Helena to her in the ballroom, flooding her with pheromones, the very thing she knew Helena hated above all else. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said, feeling utterly helpless.

Helena quickly shook her head. “You have nothing to be sorry about, Myka,” she croaked, then cleared her throat. “Whoever laced your drink, though, I’d like to have a talk with them.”

“I don’t even know,” Myka sighed, “could’ve been any of them.” And then it truly hit her.

They must have planned this. Smoller and his bros, or whoever – but probably them – had had Alpha blusters on them, had put them in the orange juice or asked the bartender to do so, because they’d known Myka wouldn’t drink alcohol, and then they’d tried to goad her into fighting. 

And then they’d ganged up on her, five to fucking one. 

They had fucking planned this. There was no other explanation. And who else had been in on it? The kind invitation, the smile Megan had given her-

Myka didn’t realize she was curling into a ball until Helena moved away from her to give her space to do so. Myka couldn’t bear the look on Helena’s face; she tucked herself into the sofa corner to get away from it. Just a moment, give her just a moment before she’d pull herself together; she needed just one moment of-

Why on Earth had she ever believed that coming here was a good idea?

“Hey, Mykes,” Pete said at her back, “Myka, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have encouraged you to go; I had no idea- you totally made the right call and I busted that and I’m so, so sorry.”

“Go away, Pete,” she said, and it came out wet. “Just… just leave me alone.”

“No can do, partner,” he said earnestly, almost sadly. “Body in the bathroom; kinda a bad look with the place crawling with police, okay?”

“Yeah, so, how are we gonna explain that?” Kelly asked in the background. 

Myka tried to hide her face further. She didn’t want Kelly to see her; she just wanted everyone to go away.

“Not now, Kelly, please,” Pete told her. 

“There is a fucking dead body in here,” Kelly snapped, “the bathroom is fucking _covered_ in blood, cabron, and who’s gonna believe us when we say some woo-woo thingy did it?!”

“Now is not the time, Doctor Hernandez,” Helena said. 

“Why? Just because she can’t pull herself together? So she got into a fight; so what? I’ve seen Alphas take blusters for _fun_ , for heaven’s sake, it’s not that big of a de-”

“Doctor Hernandez,” Helena warned in a low voice. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh is that so, _Omega?”_

“Shut up!” Myka yelled into the backrest, then turned around to face the three of them. “All of you, just shut the fuck up!” And then she stumbled out of the room and into the staircase. She retched and brought up the remnants of the orange juice and some blood along with it, swaying on the spot as her knees threatened to buckle. 

Cool hands held back her hair, caught her under her shoulder to steady her, and she pulled away from them. “Leave me alone,” she hissed, heading a few steps up the stairs to get away from Helena. 

“No can do,” Helena echoed Pete. “You’re upset and hurt; I need to at least keep an eye on you.”

“Oh, now I’m a test subject, am I?”

“No, Myka.” Helena sounded hurt. “I simply worried for you. You took quite the beating in there, you just vomited up bile that had blood in it, and you haven’t been seen by a doctor, quite apart from the emotional dis-”

“Will you shut – the fuck – up?!” Myka shouted at her.

Helena gaped at Myka, then shut her mouth so sharply that her teeth clicked. 

“This is fucking nothing new,” Myka continued. “Six fucking years of my life being pissed on for being trans, senior year being pissed on for being a fucking Tau; do you seriously believe I’ve never gotten a beating before?”

“Myka, I’m-”

“Don’t you _dare_ say you’re sorry,” Myka yelled. “Don’t you dare,” she repeated in more normal tones. Her throat hurt, from the bile and the shouting and the tears that she kept swallowing. “Just leave me alone!”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why?” Myka flung the question out like a challenge. “Why is it so hard to do the _one_ thing I’m asking you?” 

“I got a full broadside of your pheromones,” Helena said flatly. “I can’t.”

Myka stared at her for a breath, two, three, as Helena’s words sunk in. “Shit,” she whispered, and sank her face into her hands. 

“I am using the inhibitor,” Helena went on, still in that same horribly bland voice, “and you still got through. Seems it goes both ways with the two of us. We should get that checked one of these days.”

“Shit, Helena,” Myka said. How could the woman talk about this so… so calmly?! She felt motion next to her: Helena was sitting down on the stair step with her. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Helena said curtly. “Whoever did this fucked with both of us.”

The expletive surprised Myka; Helena wasn’t usually one to pepper them into a sentence at random. “No idea if the police are going to ever find out who did this,” she muttered. “I mean who cares about a Tau anyway.”

“I do,” Helena said simply. 

It stopped Myka short. “You what?”

Helena turned to her with a tiny, tired smile. “Is that so hard to believe?” she asked. “That I care about you?”

Myka frowned. “After what I just did? Knowing that you hate it?”

“Knowing that you weren’t responsible for the state you were in?” Helena shook her head, and her smile grew a smidgeon stronger. “Come on, Myka, give me a little bit of credit, will you?”

Myka stared at her, then looked aside. This was all too much. She fucking hurt all over, she felt both violated and violator, and she had no idea how to deal with Helena looking at her like that. She had no reply, and the silence stretched out between them until Pete found them and told them that everything was handled and they were going home.


	12. Chapter 12

A week later, Myka _still_ hadn’t talked with Helena about any of the things that were just fucking piling up between them, but how could she? On the other hand, at the very least if Helena was pregnant, she would have said something, right? Or Myka would have known? Didn’t Alphas know when they got an Omega pregnant?

And then Pete and she were sent to New York for Fashion Week, and Pete had this inane idea about Myka going undercover amongst the models. 

“Pete, I have a fucking you-know-what between my legs,” Myka hissed at him in the small hallway of the modeling agency. 

“So what?” Pete asked. “Myka, you- you know it’s about the attitude, right? About going out there looking as though you own the world, and fuck the haters.”

“And have you ever seen me look like that? Like, even once?”

“Well maybe now is a good time to start,” he shot back. “Fucking _show_ Smoller and idiots like him that you’re like a thousand leagues ahead of them. You know you are.”

She stared at him. “You’re serious. You are fucking serious about this.”

“Yeah I am,” Pete said. “I am one hundred percent serious that you can go out there and,” he snapped his fingers left, right, left, “slay them, girlfriend.”

-_-_-

Two days later, she looked circa ninety and was in a fucking hospital bed, feeling like every breath might be her fucking last. 

And Helena couldn’t even look at her. 

That, apparently, was how much she cared. Took one look at Myka, and stormed out of the room, never to be seen again. Oh, Pete said she worked on the case with him, said she did good, but he wouldn’t meet Myka’s eyes and she could draw her own conclusions, especially when Helena only reappeared when Myka was back to normal, and even then went out of her way to not be alone in a room with her. 

Right. Who cared now? 

Not the designer, who’d put her out there to be edgy. ‘Nobody has a trans model who open-carries; it’ll be all over the front pages.’ Not his star model, who stopped feeling threatened by Myka the moment she learned that Myka was trans. 

And Pete, with all his ‘little teen fencer growing up into a beautiful woman’ pep talk, had he even meant it? 

And her therapist was giving up his practice and no longer did consultations, not in person, not on the phone. 

Leena, at one point, tried to tell Myka she was being waspish, and Myka apologized and left so as not to bother her any further, so that probably was okay. Myka tried to keep to herself after that, hitting the basement gym five days out of seven, doing her best to do a good job in the field and on inventory, and never ever teaming up with Helena if she could at all avoid it. She went so far as to ask Artie specifically to not team them up together, and he seemed happy to oblige, weirdly enough. 

Well, everyone handled their shit in their own way. Nice of him to support her handling her shit her way, she supposed. 

And then she got to wear a fucking superhero suit and strut around like an idiot dispatching surplus energy, and it was kinda cool in a way – more than the runway had been, that was for sure – and when she came back, Helena laid into her that she could’ve been killed, and Myka lost it. 

“What do you care? You barely cared in New York, why start now?”

Helena spluttered. “I… I did care! I do care – that is precisely what I am saying! It’s you who doesn’t seem to care if you live or die!”

In an attempt not to strangle the woman, Myka ran her hands through her hair, half-tempted to tear out chunks of it if it hadn’t been such a hard-won prize. “I’m a fucking agent, Helena; trained to take a bullet, ready to take on anything if it means saving people. That is my _fucking job._ That is the one fucking thing I’m good at, okay?” 

“Myka, I know precisely how much energy went into that suit and through you; I know precisely how close you came to dying,” Helena said in a low growl. “Claudia and I worked extremely hard for the suit to do exactly what it needed to do, and then you went and _improvised.”_ The last word was laced with spite.

“I did what needed to be done!” Myka shouted. “I’m out there calling the shots, okay? Easy to sit here and wring your hands about precision when it’s me out there taking the risk!”

“Oh that was a low blow, Myka Bering,” Helena hissed. “You know I would be out in the field if Arthur thought he could trust me.”

“Yeah well, maybe he has his reasons,” Myka shot back. “He’s been doing this for a long time, after all.”

“You don’t truly mean that,” Helena replied, looking as if she was taken aback.

“I don’t know _what_ to think about you anymore,” Myka told her, flapping her arms in exasperation. “Do I even really know you? You know, lately I am not so sure.”

Helena recoiled as if Myka had slapped her. Her face shuttered. “Then maybe you aren’t all that good at reading people, Agent Bering.”

“Oh, now it’s my fault? Fuck that,” Myka fumed. 

Helena stared at her for a moment, as if Myka had suddenly grown a second head. Then she turned aside. “This is obviously a bad idea,” she muttered. “Why I even thought that working alongside you would work out, I have no clue.”

“Fine, then,” Myka snapped. “I won’t.” And she turned and stalked towards Artie’s office, thunder in her ear and darkness in her heart. Helena was right; this wasn’t working – the Warehouse obviously wasn’t large enough for both of them. And obviously no one in their right mind would keep Myka Bering on when they could have H.G. fucking Wells instead. Myka wouldn’t give them the opportunity; she really didn’t want to deal with a termination letter. She’d rather write her own. Proactive. She’d always been that. Pete would take it hard, and she’d miss him, but the thought of staying and trying to get along with-

No.

Best she was out of here. 

Leena’s face when Myka told her almost made her think again, but then she saw Helena’s tea mug in the sink and hardened her resolve. 

She was out of the place in under an hour. 

She didn’t cry as she drove away. 

It would blur her vision, and that was unsafe, after all. 

Now what? Colorado was out of the question. Maybe make her way back to Washington, see if Dickinson had an opening. She’d always gotten along with him. She turned east, and stopped for the night in Sioux Falls. Checked into a chain motel, headed out for a drink; fuck, she needed one. 

A guy addressed her from one booth over. She was about to snap at him when she saw that he was in a wheelchair. He didn’t seem too bad as they talked. Definitely wasn’t trying to pick her up, which was nice. Respected her space, which was even nicer. Excused himself after she finished her drink, like a true fucking gentleman. Told her to take care, okay, yeah, she didn’t need the reminder, but whatever. 

She ran into him the next morning as she checked out. 

“Heading off, too?” he asked. “East or west?”

Myka shrugged. The breakfast room coffee had been awful, and she didn’t feel talkative, much less like giving strangers an idea of her travel plans.

“None of my business, you’re right,” he said. “Let’s just let this be a ships in the night kinda thing. Oh, here,” he said when the hotel pen that she was trying to sign her receipt with didn’t work, and held out a pen and business card to her. 

Ships in the night, huh. She refrained from rolling her eyes and gave him her blandest smile instead. “Thanks.”

“Save travels,” he nodded at her as he turned and left.

Whatever. 

She glanced at the card before she tossed it. The pen, she kept – always hang on to good pens, and this one was – but she had zero interest in Walter Sykes.


	13. Chapter 13

Turned out that the Warehouse had an interest in Walter Sykes, though. 

Turned out he was suspected of killing Regents – at least suspected by Mrs. Frederic. Artie, apparently, secretly suspected Helena on a revenge spree, for some reason. 

Mrs. Frederic told Myka all of that, in another motel room somewhere in the outskirts of Indianapolis.

“Give me one reason why I should care,” Myka said flatly. 

“You don’t need a reason, Ms. Bering,” Mrs. Frederic said. “You and I both know that. You accepted the job and the responsibility that comes with it, and you’re not one to shirk responsibility over a detail such as employment status.”

Myka gritted her teeth. Mrs. Frederic was right. Myka hated it, but she couldn’t deny it. “Fine. What do you want?” She saw no need for politeness; just because she felt responsible didn’t mean she didn’t still feel angry.

Still, what Mrs. Frederic outlined went above and beyond. 

Myka stared at her. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly serious, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Frederic replied with a stoniness that made Myka run cold. “Three Regents have been murdered in the past year, and two more we are unable to reach at the moment. We’re certain, by now, that the Regents who are dead have been tortured before they were killed. Whoever is doing this wants information about the Warehouse, and that is the real danger. We know that Walter Sykes has held his grudge for a long time, and that he’s intent on revenge. We don’t know his exact plans for that revenge, but his willingness to kill is… disquieting. That is why I’m asking your help, Ms. Bering.” She shifted, showing the first sign of unease Myka had ever seen on her. “Make no mistake,” she went on, “this mission will be dangerous. And you’ll be mostly on your own. Rest assured, though, that I will do everything in my power to assure your safety.”

Myka was stunned. She swallowed. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Fifty days later, she was dead.

Or so she thought. 

She’d been in the back room of a small plane hangar with Sykes, Struhl and Diamond – who reeked of death in a way she’d never smelled before; it was disgusting – and then Diamond had her in a stranglehold and plunged a syringe into her carotid and she remembered thinking that that was it. 

What a waste. 

But now she found herself surrounded by books – not her father’s bookstore; a much larger place. A library, old and splendid, like Trinity College’s Long Room. 

If this was the afterlife, there were worse places to be, she thought. Briefly she wondered if the message she’d recorded for the rest of the team would be enough for them to protect the Warehouse and/or get Sykes, but that did not matter now, did it. Now that she was dead.

And then Mrs. Frederic was walking towards her clad all in white, and Myka couldn’t help it:

She started laughing. 

This was some serious Dumbledore shit. 

“Am I high?” she asked when she was able to form coherent sentences again. “What the hell drug was in that syringe?”

“A lethal one,” Mrs. Frederic said. “Just as I had predicted.” She sounded slightly smug.

“Then why am I here?” Myka asked. “Did the bezoar not work? What is this place?”

Mrs. Frederic looked around herself. “Somewhere of your devising, I assume,” she said. “You are on the brink between one moment and the next, between life and death. In liminal spaces such as this, I have my greatest power. I brought you here, but you are providing the ‘here’, so to speak.” She shifted, and Myka knew that the small talk, if that’s what it had been, was over. “You were ready to sacrifice everything for the Warehouse,” Mrs. Frederic said, “and the Warehouse would like to express its gratitude.”

Myka snorted. “What, by giving me another apple?” It seemed so long ago now.

“No,” Mrs. Frederic said, “by giving you a future. First, the glimpse of one possibility, then the opportunity to turn that possibility into reality. Prepare yourself for a few moments of disorientation, and a few days of immersion before we meet again.”

And before Myka could so much as ask what was going on, everything dissolved into white.


	14. Chapter 14

Myka started awake. The room wasn’t fully dark, but dark enough that she didn’t have an idea where exactly she was. She was in a bed, she could tell that much; and – she listened for a moment – unlike in that incident with Pete and the Bookends, she was alone. 

She felt… different. Again. Shit. She quickly ran her hands across her body: no, that wasn’t it. Still the same; still herself. So far, so good. She did a quick mental check, and that’s when she realized that despite everything that had happened in the last – to her – hour or so, she felt calmer than she’d ever felt. Relaxed, at rest. 

So was this the future, then, that Mrs. F had talked about? Calm and relaxed sounded nice. She knew, from her teenage therapy sessions, that calm and relaxed were actual physical states, traceable in the human body. So maybe this future body of hers had been calm and relaxed for long enough to actually feel the difference?

Well, that sounded okay.

That sounded more than okay.

She just had no idea how she would even get there. How far into the future was this?

There was a watch on her wrist, with slightly glowing digital replica of a regular, old-fashioned watch face. It showed the time and date – almost one a.m. on the twenty-third of whatever month – but, yeah, a year would’ve been nice.

Myka fumbled around until her fingers found a lamp, and the light switch on that lamp. The room didn’t yield many clues; it wasn’t quite as impersonal as a hotel room, but close – barely any distinctive features; someone’s guest room, probably. The bed she was on was a pull-out sofa bed, and the room also featured a small desk and chair and a couple bookshelves. These, now, yielded some personality: whoever had stacked these had good taste; Myka recognized a good number of the titles, and the books looked well-read. There was a window with drawn curtains; the fixtures and furniture looked American – Myka shrugged and sat up. Maybe there was a mirror somewhere for her to catch a glimpse of her face.

Slipping out from under the sheets, she noticed a scar on her right thigh, right above her knee – not a deep one, and long-healed by the look of it; it didn’t pull on the muscle, only on the skin, and didn’t hurt. Seeing it also meant that she’d been sleeping in shorts. Unusual. Her t-shirt was non-descript; a washed-out gray with no markings on it. Her hands looked the same as ever – but there was a new tattoo on the inside of her arm: ‘I hope, or I could not live.’ She snorted softly; she knew very well which book that quote was from and who’d written it, but – hope? She’d never had much use for hope. Why, of all possible quotes or reminders or whatever this was supposed to be, had she chosen _this_ to be inked in such a prominent place?

She shook her head, determined to figure this out at a later date. Then she felt her face and it, too, didn’t seem too different – probably not too far in the future, then. The bedside light was too dim to make out if she had gray in her hair, so she stood up and headed for the door, determined to find a bathroom or some other place with a mirror.

The hallway was dark, with light coming out under one door. So someone else was here? Myka tensed, then reminded herself – guest room; this was probably her host’s room, or another guest. She found the hallway light and by it, another door that had a bathroom knob. It was unlocked and dark, and she went in and flipped the switch. 

She didn’t look much older, she thought as she looked at herself in the mirror, but she did look… softer, somehow. Not any less muscular – she checked; she was as proud of her guns, deep down, as Pete was of his – but she had a… a kind of gentle look about her, as though she didn’t frown quite as often anymore. 

Huh. Okay. That seemed nice too.

So here she was, somewhere between, let’s say five and seven years older, still in good shape, feeling calm and relaxed and looking kind. 

There were worse things, she decided. 

And, she decided, now that she was here, she might as well make use of the facilit-

She saw herself scowling in the mirror. She’d had to go there, didn’t she, and say that word, even in her mind, in Received Pronunciation.

She closed her eyes and counted to ten, trying to breathe into her abs and relax them, trying to loosen her facial muscles. Calm and relaxed, Bering, mind over matter. Come on. Helena is a thing of the past. You’re here, you’re still going, you’re doing well for yourself. Focus on that. 

She nodded to herself, opened her eyes and did her business, washed her hands, and filled a glass that was standing next to the sink to drink deeply. 

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected from it, but it tasted nice. 

Then she rolled her eyes at herself; it was fucking water; what else was new? 

Then she straightened her shoulders and looked at herself as much as she could in the little mirror. T-shirt and shorts covered everything that needed to be covered to be halfway decent; she could go and have a look around without having bits hang out that shouldn’t.

The hallway had a solitary door at the short end, and two doors on each of its longer sides. Myka looked through the single door first, and saw a very familiar hallway and landing on the other side. She frowned. Leena’s B&B didn’t have a door in this place, did it? Then again, it had morphed to accommodate – deep breath, Bering, it’s not hard – to accommodate Helena moving in. So Myka was still or again at Leena’s; it just looked a bit different than before. A new wing, or suite or something, out of nowhere. Bigger on the inside; she almost giggled at the thought. 

Okay, so for some reason, Myka had woken up in this new wing and not in her usual room. She could find out why later. She closed the door again and turned back the way she’d come, curious to find out more about this new addition to Leena’s.

The hallway had four more doors she could explore; the one that she’d come out of, one bathroom, one with the light under it and one without. How many more agents had been hired? Her eyes were drawn by the room with the light under the door. Another agent, still awake, who she could talk to and find out what was what. She briefly wondered if it was okay to disturb them after midnight, but the light was too bright to be a nightlight; before she could talk herself out of it, she stepped up to the door and knocked. 

When the ‘Come in’ came, Myka froze. She had not expected to hear that voice – no, that was a lie. 

She had. Deep in her heart, she had known why she felt calm and relaxed, why the books on the shelves in the room she’d woken up in had looked familiar, why there was a sudden new place in the B&B that looked more like a miniature apartment rather than the usual agent accommodation.

She just had no idea how on Earth she had gotten from where she’d left off with Helena to _this_.

Her heart was in her throat, and she found herself staring at the door as if behind it there be dragons. Then she snorted at herself and went in.

“Hey,” she said, halting just inside the door, suddenly hesitant. How would she explain this?

“Hello,” Helena said, put her book aside and smiled. She was sitting on a two-seater in what seemed like an office lined with yet more bookshelves that held, among all kinds of literature, machinery in various states of assembly and/or repair, a little tool chest, and frames with pressed flowers and leaves. It was peaceful, this room, and very… very Helena. Myka had no doubt whatsoever that this was the woman’s sanctum, a space that was hers, not shared with anyone else. If that was so, was the room she’d woken up in – the room she’d thought so impersonal – her version of this? 

Speaking of: she should explain, shouldn’t she? How she’d woken up there; who she was? But how? How to even start? ‘Remember when I was dead?’

Helena’s smile had deepened. “Wondering how to explain?” she asked.

Myka’s mouth dropped open. “Uh… yeah?”

Helena actually chuckled. Then she gestured towards the desk and chair. “Why don’t you have a seat,” she said, “choice of chair or sofa, whichever you like.”

Myka took the chair. Part of her longed to be on the sofa, closer to Helena, but that would be too close, wouldn’t it? Too… too much. Presumptuous. 

If Helena had misgivings about Myka’s choice, she didn’t voice them. She simply sat back and pulled up her legs under her. “Five years ago,” she began, “there was a day we both remember.” She stopped and winced; her eyes were suddenly dark with pain. “Apologies,” she said, “but I’m afraid that’s where I have to start. 

“You came back to life, and you seemed… changed. As if in those seven weeks something had clicked; as if you’d come to a conclusion – a conclusion I knew nothing about, and why would I, the way I had treated you before we parted.” She held up a hand to stop Myka from speaking. “Please,” she said, “let me finish first.” 

Myka subsided, but it wasn’t easy. There were about a million questions swarming in her mind.

“Things came to a head quickly,” Helena said with a peculiar smile. “You… I won’t say cornered me, the next day – but you did make it clear you wanted to speak to me without evasion. And then you told me a story worthy of a novel, of the ghost of Myka future, if you will; of a place you’d seen, a person you’d met, a future you wanted to pursue even if you had no idea how to get there. You did not go into much detail; you said you couldn’t. Until,” Helena checked her wristwatch and went on, “yesterday, when you – well, the version of you who lives with me, that is – told me that you would go to bed on your own, because it was time.”

Myka blinked. 

“I’d had my suspicions,” Helena said with a small shrug and smile, “that the person you’d met had been myself somehow, but I had no idea how or what on Earth I was to do, and I told her so. She asked me to simply be with you for however long you’d be here, and so here I am, not a lot better informed at what I am supposed to contribute, but I’ll do my best.”

Myka blinked again. “Lives with you,” she said, picking out the one detail that stood out among the chaos. 

Helena nodded. “This is our place,” she said with a gesture that encompassed the apartment. “Somewhat more privacy,” she added, and her cheeks were suddenly a bit flushed, “and yet still under Leena’s roof to give us the leeway that agents need.”

“Agents,” Myka repeated.

Again, Helena nodded. “Both of us, yes.”

Myka cast around, trying to find a question that would help her make sense of all of this, and finally asked, _“How?”_

Helena chuckled. “There is no limit to what two people can work out between them if they set their minds too it.”

Myka gave her a level look. “I’m gonna need some more than that,” she said. 

“I’m afraid I can’t,” Helena told her with an apologetic smile. “She said that you couldn’t know all the details; that any instructions would be erased from your thoughts upon your return. She said it wasn’t about the details at all, but about-” Helena stopped herself for a moment. She leaned forward, eyes suddenly intense, and finished, “About you realizing, you _trusting_ , that this is possible.”

Myka remembered Mrs. F’s words. “First, the glimpse of one possibility,” she said tonelessly, “then the opportunity to turn that possibility into reality.”

Helena tilted her head in silent question. 

“Mrs. Frederic said that to me,” Myka explained. “Just before I came here. I think… I think I understand? Like, I get to live here, and then I get to go back and try and make it happen. But… but why would my memories be erased? What would be the point of me being here?”

“Not your memories,” Helena said. “Instructions. She specifically said ‘instructions’, and ‘details’. I would assume that that is to ensure that there be no short-cuts on the way here.”

Myka frowned. “Not fair,” she said, with almost a pout. 

Helena laughed. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past five years,” she said fondly, “then it is that you _would_ say that, yes.” Then her face turned serious. “Myka, are you alright? If I’m not very much mistaken, you are straight from a… near-death experience, by any other name. Is there anything you need?”

She’d forgotten about that, hadn’t she. Straight up forgotten. Myka huffed a silent laugh and shook her head at herself. “Compartmentalization,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. “I’m good at it.” It didn’t come out any kind of level, though; her voice _quavered_. 

Her hands were shaking.

She was shaking.

Helena stood up and held out her hand. “Come on,” she said simply, “time to lay down, I daresay.”

Half a minute later, Myka found herself in the comfiest bed she’d ever been in, between the softest sheets she’d ever felt, as if the bed itself was hugging her. The mattress dipped as Helena sat down on the other half of the bed. 

“Would you like me to stay with you, Myka?” she asked. 

“Well, we’re supposed to, right?” Myka replied. Truth be told, she was still shaking like a leaf, and fuck did she want Helena to stay – her whole body yearned; it was weird. And it was this exact weirdness that made her ask, that was borderline freaking her out. “Are we- are she and you bonded? I don’t understand.”

Helena shook her head. “Not bonded,” she said, “no. You – well, she – said she didn’t want it, and I agreed. Perhaps in the future we yet will; but back at the beginning it was important to both of us that anything that developed between us was based on clear-headed decisions, not on pheromones. Mind over matter, as you’re so fond of saying.”

“Then why do I feel this way?” Myka asked helplessly. The impulse to snuggle into Helena’s side was breathtaking in its intensity, like a big lump of… of _something_ sitting smack in the middle of her chest.

“Would you be alright if we talked about this tomorrow?” Helena asked with a sigh. “You do seem to be running on fumes, as the saying goes, and I think all of this will be easier to understand and make sense of with a good night’s sleep under your belt. If I may say so, you might sleep more restfully if I stay, on the basis that your physical body is used to it. But if that would discomfit you, I am more than willing to keep away.” 

Myka slowly parsed that. She was tired, there was no denying that. Her thoughts were swirling, trying to avoid that near-death experience at all cost, failing at making sense of where she was and why she was here – Helena was right; processing this in the morning made more sense. 

And it was an undeniable fact, always had been, that being close to Helena made her feel physically well, no matter how conflicted she or Helena or both of them might be on an emotional level. And if Helena was fine with it?

She nodded. “Please,” she said, “stay.”


	15. Chapter 15

Waking up had never felt so right. Like, ever. Helena was in the crook of Myka’s arm, her leg intertwined with Myka’s, her forehead nuzzled against Myka’s cheek, her arm slung across Myka’s chest.

Never, _ever_ , had anything felt so right.

And with that realization, Myka began to cry. She couldn’t help it, and in fact she hated it, but that big heavy lump in her chest was back with a vengeance and she couldn’t fight it off.

Helena, after a moment, simply wound herself around Myka more tightly. “It’s alright, love,” she murmured, and Myka had no hope of stopping herself anymore.

When the sobs started – big, begrudged things that clawed their way straight out of the lump in Myka’s chest – Helena moved upward a little and pulled Myka into her, rocking back and forth and humming under her breath. 

Myka couldn’t remember the last time anyone had held her while she cried.

She rarely cried in the first place, there was that; crying was a weakness. Crying meant you were unable to cope, and she prided herself on always being able to cope.

Next, if she absolutely _had_ to cry, she went where people couldn’t see. Because they would make fun of you, or attack you, or at the very least remember your weakness for some later date. They always did. 

The world was full of people who had it in for you, and you couldn’t show weakness, ever.

Oh, sure, her therapist, at some point, had said something along the lines of that not being a healthy way to cope, but even he had conceded that they had more urgent things to talk about. 

So, yeah, Myka wasn’t used to crying – or rather, Myka was used to not crying, and yet here she was, not just bawling her eyes out, but being held while she did so. It should have felt demeaning; she’d always thought it’d feel demeaning but it didn’t, and she clung to Helena with a desperation that she bitterly, bitterly hoped she wouldn’t come to regret.

One of Helena’s hands was running over Myka’s hair, and it should have felt patronizing but it didn’t.

Helena’s voice was whispering little reassurances into her ear, and it should have felt meaningless but it didn’t.

Helena’s presence was undeniable; her body pressed into Myka’s, her arms around Myka’s shoulders, her warmth, her weight, her scent, and it should have felt intrusive but it didn’t.

And Myka couldn’t cope with it; every time she thought she was about ready to get a grip on herself, Helena’s fingers or Helena’s voice or Helena’s sheer presence would make themselves known, and Myka dissolved again. 

She had no idea how long she cried. At some point, the watch on her wrist buzzed, though, and that somehow got through to her. She sniffed and looked at it. “What’s that for?” Her voice was rough and sodden.

“A reminder to take your suppressant,” Helena said. “These watches have sensors over your wrist glands that measure pheromone output, and if that crosses a certain threshold, it alerts you to take an extra dose.” She pulled away from Myka very, very slightly and very, very gently. “I’ll go and get it for you, shall I?”

Myka nodded immediately, sat up and wiped her face. However suppressants worked these days – and this sounded very different from what she knew – she would take them just like the doctor prescribed. 

Helena returned a moment later with a bottle of small pills and a glass of water. “Check your watch,” she said, “it’ll tell you the dosage you need.”

Myka blinked. The watch face, she saw, no longer displayed an imitation watch face, but bore the words ‘35µg’. She told Helena so, marveling as she did – she usually took 250 per day – 35 seemed impossibly low, even for just a supporting dose. Nevertheless, Helena shook out four pills, one of which she snapped in half before she held all of it out to Myka.

“This has allowed people to severely lower the dosage of long-term suppressants,” Helena told her while she took the pills. “Which, in turn, has massively improved side effects and quality of life. I can’t truly take credit under my own name, of course, but I’m glad I was able to make a positive difference.”

Myka coughed as she choked on the last sip of water. “ _You_ developed these?”

Helena smirked and nodded. “Asked Claudia to ask Josh to help me find a promising young neurobiologist to send my findings to, under the condition that she don’t patent them. The fame she reaped more than made up for that, I believe, setting her up quite comfortably in terms of money and a steady job.”

“Huh.” Myka came to a sudden realization. “Is this why I’m feeling so good?”

“Good how?” Helena asked back, tilting her head. 

“More… relaxed,” Myka said. “Calmer. Less…” she couldn’t find a word and simply shrugged. 

Helena hummed. Then she said, “Partly, I believe, yes.” Her smirk grew soft, grew into a true smile. “However, I am also confident saying that I played a more direct part. As well as you yourself.”

Myka frowned. “You really need to be more specific,” she groused. “This could mean _anything.”_

Now Helena looked peeved. “I don’t know how much to tell you,” she said. “No instructions, remember?”

“Well, if they’re going to be erased from my memory anyway, you can tell me now, though, can’t you?” Myka gave back. She shook her head. “Helena, I need to know. I need to understand. I can’t just trust blindly; you know I can’t.”

Helena looked at her for a while, then nodded. “If I know anything about you, I know that much, yes. And if your memory of this can be erased later, I suppose there is no harm in telling you now.” She sighed and looked at her hands. “You once told me,” she began, “that holding me felt right to you.” She looked up at Myka again, but refrained from asking if Myka remembered. Myka nodded anyway, and Helena went on, “It always has for me as well. And when you… that day, five years ago, you – no, she, I should say, made a very emphatic case for focusing on that. To figure out why, yes, but also to… to simply _have_ that. The world is full of things that make you feel bad, she said, and that she wanted to hold on to this good feeling if I was open to it.” Helena looked aside and took a deep breath. “Her suggestion took me by surprise, but we did decide to, ah, lean into it, as they say. Not in a romantic way, at least not at first. We simply sought each other out when we needed. We were both afraid, I think, of any form of romantic or sexual physicality, but embracing, even sleeping in one bed? That became commonplace.”

Myka swallowed. Tears sprang back into her eyes as she envisioned – no, as she _envied_ her other self doing all that. 

Helena looked at her with a peculiar little smile. “You do realize,” she asked, “that you have that coming to you, do you not?”

Myka stared at her. “Did you just read my mind?”

Helena laughed. “No. I do, however, know the body language and facial expressions of one Myka Bering extremely well by now. The deduction wasn’t all that hard.” She reached out and squeezed Myka’s arm to take the sting out of her words. 

The gesture alerted Myka to something, and she took Helena’s hand and looked at her forearm. “You… you’ve got the same tattoo,” she said, feeling suddenly breathless.

Helena smiled and nodded. “It seemed right, then,” she said, “and it still does.” She didn’t elaborate further, and Myka decided not to ask. 

She had so many other things she wanted to know, after all. “So, um… we… we’ve – I mean you two have been doing all that, then?” she said, wondering how to ask if things had ever progressed further than that.

Again, Helena nodded, and again, that peculiar little smile was on her face. “That, and more,” she said. “We kissed, one night. I couldn’t point at her or me for having started it; we were pulled towards each other like magnets. And before you ask-” Helena sat up straighter, grasping her hands in her lap. “Myka, none of this, not one moment, not one action, was ever driven by pheromones. I know how much you detest the idea; you know how much I detest the idea. From the very beginning, that was something we both agreed on. We both took – still take – our suppressants religiously. We both are well able to handle our pheromones and make sure our minds aren’t clouded by them. Know this, Myka; know it in your bones, in your soul and center – all of this,” she gestured between them, “all of it is us, our minds, our rational thoughts, not any Alpha or Omega glands.”

Myka’s breath stopped – Helena’s gaze was intense, as if she wanted to see right into that soul and center, and make sure her words took root there. Myka nodded wordlessly. 

Helena nodded back. “So, we kissed,” she went on, sounding far lighter than before, “kissed and explored that. It was around that time that we decided to find a couples’ therapist; we did not want to run any risks. There was still a lot of fragility between us, and neither of us wanted to hurt the other, or damage what we have. I had misgivings at first, and we both had difficulties opening up, but we were determined. We could feel our rightness every time we touched, though, and that carried us forward.” Again she gestured, this time at the room – their bedroom. “One thing that grew between us, along the way, was trust. Our bodies already trusted each other; I believe that is the main reason for why we feel like we do when we touch. However, we needed to learn to choose to trust each other rationally, emotionally, on all other levels than the strictly physical.”

Myka stared at her, then took a long, slow breath. “That… makes a lot of sense,” she said. “And it explains why… why I’m here. I think.” She bit the inside of her lip. “I don’t… I don’t trust,” she said quietly. “Emotionally,” she added. “I trust Pete rationally, because I know he has my back. And I guess there are a few things I’ve told him along the months, emotional stuff, but…” she shook her head. “Like, I don’t even know why I’m telling you this – I never would have told you, I mean, the other you, any of this before, but-” she broke off with a shrug. “I guess all bets are off now. Everything’s up in the air.” She laughed, and if it sounded slightly manic, so what? Here Helena was telling her that, what, they’d been sharing a freaking bed for five years-

Helena’s arms were around her again, and it was only then that Myka realized she was crying, _again_. Where were all these tears coming from, for fuck’s sake? And when would Helena have enough of them and leave? Her embrace was so steady, though. So solid. And sometimes you needed to take what you could get, right? So – so leaning into her was alright, wasn’t it?

“There’s another thing I need you to know,” Helena was saying, cheek pressed against the side of Myka’s head. “I will never, ever leave you.”

Myka hiccupped a laugh; she would have liked to pull away from Helena for that one, but her body flat-out refused to move. “You _are_ reading my mind.”

She could feel Helena shake her head. “No,” Helena said again, “she told me how afraid she was of that. Two years after we started out, Myka. Two years she carried this fear, and never told me anything about it, so I’m telling you here and now, even though I know you will lose the knowledge. But you need to know this, right now, for however long you’ll be allowed to – I am here. I gave you my promise three years ago, and I’ll give it again; you will always have me. As long as I draw breath, I will be at your side.”

It hurt. 

“It hurts,” Myka pressed out. “Why does it hurt?”

Cool hands cupped her face, and thumbs wiped away her tears. “Myka,” Helena asked, so very gently, “have you ever read the fairytale of the Snow Queen?” 

Myka, who had no idea how this was in any way pertinent to her question, nodded. Yeah, she knew the story.

“When a heart is frozen,” Helena said, “and hardened, and shut to the world, it feels nothing and we might think it is good; but it is not – it robs us of joy, of hope.” She tapped the tattoo on Myka’s forearm. “And we cannot live without those. We merely exist, playing with shards of ice, forming shapes and words the meaning of which we cannot comprehend as life passes us by. And when someone finds us,” and she bent forward and kissed Myka’s left cheek, “and loves us,” and her right cheek, “and helps us open our heart again,” she kissed her softly on the lips, “what hurts then is the ice melting,” again, “the fear of feeling something again,” and again, “of feeling too much when we’re used to feeling nothing,” and again, “when we’ve conditioned ourselves to think it was good to feel nothing.” She leaned her forehead against Myka’s, and her breath caressed Myka’s cheek as she went on, “We feel like we’re falling, like the solid ground has dissolved underneath us, and that scares us too, until we realize that we’re held, unshakably, invincibly, in the heart of the one who loves us.”

Myka had trouble breathing. She swayed where she sat, leaning into Helena like a listing prize fighter, a strange keening in her ears and a pain in her chest as though her heart was being picked apart by shards of ice. 

“I am here, Myka; I am holding you,” she heard a low, steady, purposeful voice in her ear. “Don’t be afraid of falling; don’t fear for your heart. She took that plunge with me and we held each other safe; she has never let me fall and neither have I her. That is also what you feel; the lightness, the calmness of a heart that’s come to trust another.”

There were more kisses on Myka’s cheeks, soft lips on the wetness and strong hands holding her up. She did feel like she was falling, spiraling, as Helena’s words replayed themselves again and again in her mind in bits and pieces, shattering her whole being into shards, no: those words and kisses and hands chipped the shards loose, chipped and chipped and exposed the raw flesh underneath, which twitched and twinged as the hands and kisses and words settled on it, in it, all around it, soft as spring rain and butterflies and silk but unshakable, invincible.

“I am here,” Helena told her; Helena, who had been here for Myka’s other self, who had caught her and held her, who knew what she was doing now because she’d done it before; who knew what Myka needed now because she’d been through it with her before; who Myka’s body trusted even if her heart and mind didn’t – but then trust was a decision, she could decide to trust, she just never had before, had always found good reasons not to, but her body already did and her other self obviously did and felt so calm and relaxed as a result. Did she dare to do the same? 

Five years. And an apartment together, and matching tattoos, and no pheromones, and lo-

And love. 

Helena had said ‘love’. 

Was this love? 

Did love feel like vertigo, like something that’d send shards flying and make a heart feel raw? Or did it feel like the soft cradle of silk and butterflies and spring rain that a heart could let itself fall into because it would be held, always be held, unshakable, invincible? 

Was anything worth this? 

Worth this… this chaos?

A heart that didn’t feel anything – Myka knew that. Myka was familiar with that. Myka _was_ that. She knew how to be that; she had no idea how to be _this_. But she’d have time to learn; five years and more, ten, twenty – the rest of her life.

And she’d be spending that with Helena. 

And if she didn’t choose this, she wouldn’t get to spend the rest of her life with Helena, because the only way to counteract the chip-chip-chipping away was to turn and run, far and fast, and never return, never let those chip-chip-chipping hands and words and kisses anywhere near her again.

She trembled, here on her edge, but Helena’s hands were firm on her cheeks, and Helena’s voice was firm in her ears, and Helena’s kisses were firm on her lips, her jaw, her eyes, her nose, and Myka nodded and said, “Okay.”

And did not run but stayed, holding on to Helena’s wrists, leaning forehead against forehead in an attempt to stop the world from spinning, hoping, _daring_ to hope, that Helena knew what she was talking about.


	16. Chapter 16

They didn’t kiss, not straight away. 

Myka felt too raw, too tender, too overwhelmed, and Helena recognized that. 

“I felt the same way,” she reassured Myka. “Believe me, I felt the same way. My heart might not have been frozen in the same way yours was – it didn’t have the time, in between losing my child and being bronzed. But it was battered and bruised as well.” 

They were still on the bed. Myka thought it was surely afternoon now, that her epiphany or whatever it had been must have taken hours – but when she checked her watch, it was barely lunchtime, and the sun was still in their window, making Helena’s hair shine. 

“It took us months to mention the word ‘love’,” Helena went on, smiling and rolling her eyes fondly. “I think we were both afraid to spook the other or ourselves by saying it out loud.”

Myka shook her head. “No,” she said.

Helena raised her eyebrows. “No?”

Myka shook her head again, very decisively. “Helena, I don’t even know what love _means_. _I_ think I simply didn’t know that that was what I – well, she – felt.”

“You-” Helena looked at her as though struck by thunder. “What?”

Myka gave a hollow laugh. “Who’d love me?” she said. “Who would I love?” Her mom? Her dad? Tracy? She didn’t list their names; surely Helena knew them by now and what roles they’d played in Myka’s life. Five years; the other Myka had to have spoken of them, right?

“Myka…” Helena’s eyes were dark with empathy. Myka wondered if Helena hadn’t realized this before, wondered that there was still something, after five years, that Helena did not know about her. “How anyone can have you as their child and not love you is beyond my understanding,” Helena said, and, okay, that meant that she at least knew the shit-show that had been growing up in the Bering household. “But I would’ve thought… later, when you…” Helena shook her head incredulously. “Never?”

Myka shrugged, but it was difficult to feel the nonchalance with which she’d usually talk about this. It was just a fact, wasn’t it; why would it hurt? 

And why would it make Helena’s eyes fill with tears? Hadn’t there been more than enough crying already?

“Don’t cry,” she told Helena, almost roughly. “It was better that way; at least I didn’t get hurt.”

Helena looked as though she wanted to protest this, but eventually shut her mouth and nodded. “And you won’t get hurt now, either,” she said. “That’s another promise.”

“They just stack up, don’t they?” Myka tried to keep her voice light, but it cracked. Helena was promising so many things, and they sounded so good. She _wanted_ to believe in them, but-

And that was when she realized. “That’s why I’m here,” she said, shaking her head in surprise. “Helena, that’s why I’m here!”

“So that I can promise you things?” Helena asked in complete confusion.

“No,” Myka said, shaking her head so vehemently that her curls flew. “So I can see that I can believe in them. In your promises. Because you promised them to the other me, and you kept them, and she trusts you and… and…” and she couldn’t breathe again, and she was fucking crying again, and the lump was back and no words got out anymore, but this was it, this, _this_ was _it_.

The strength with which Helena hugged her told her that Helena knew it too. Myka laughed, suddenly, and hugged her back with equal force, and felt a little wild around the edges and light enough to float to the ceiling without any need for Cavorite whatsoever. 

Happy. 

She felt happy.

She wasn’t sure if they could pull this off, if this would work, and then she realized that it already had, and she laughed louder, freer, happier than before, and then she kissed Helena, because she could, because this body was used to it, because this body had learned the ways of that body, and Myka let muscle memory take over for a moment and then realized that it wasn’t really a first kiss if she did that. She faltered a little, and Helena pulled back with a questioning look on her face, with a look of wonder in her eyes, and Myka laughed again at what was bubbling up inside her at seeing Helena, kissed every inch of that beautiful, beautiful face, caught it in her hands and held on for dear life and kissed those lips, found herself crying and laughing at once, found Helena shushing her, shushing her, with kisses that were gentle rather than manic, that soothed rather than stoked, that caught and held Myka soft and unshakably as her wildness slowly subsided.

“Don’t tell me this is a side-effect of your suppressants,” Myka murmured after a while. 

Helena laugh was a soft exhalation of breath against her cheek; they were leaned forehead against forehead again. “No,” she said. “This was all you. Revelations will do that to a person, at times.”

Myka laughed, too, just as softly. She felt weak. “I should probably eat something,” she muttered. 

Helena snorted a laugh, this time, and pulled back just enough to peer into Myka’s face. “All that cognition on an empty stomach,” she said dryly. “Can’t be healthy.” She stood up and pulled Myka with her. “Come on,” she said, “let’s get you fed.”

Thirty minutes, a shower, and assorted other presentability activities later, Myka hesitated before they stepped through the door between their apartment and the rest of the B&B. “Who else is here?” she asked. Would she run into anyone? Anyone new? Anyone of the ‘old guard’, as it were? And how should she react if or when she did?

Helena looked at her with gentle eyes. “Claudia and Pete,” she said, “and Leena of course. Artie might be here or at the Warehouse, I’m not sure. Steve and Darren are out on a retrieval. You won’t encounter anyone you don’t know, but if you’d rather not encounter anyone, I can go out on my own and make you some food, if you like.”

“You hate cooking,” Myka said. She knew that for a fact. 

Helena snorted a dry laugh. “Because it was the only thing my parents insisted I learn, after I presented,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “How to care for my Alpha and keep house for him and my brood – no thank you. I hated what it stood for, not the activity per se. I do not mind cooking something for you; on the contrary.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Myka said. She’d never really thought about why exactly Helena might hate cooking, but now that she’d explained… 

So what is it going to be?” Helena asked. 

Myka took a deep breath and opened the door. The B&B smelled just like she remembered; the floorboards creaked in the exact places she remembered; from downstairs came the sounds of… she listened for a moment: Mario Kart. Pete and Claudia, probably. 

Fifty days, and she still remembered. No – _five years_ , and however many days. 

A cool hand found hers and squeezed. Brown eyes found hers and smiled. Myka smiled back, and squeezed back, and she and Helena headed down the stairs and into the living room. 

Leena looked up first; Claudia and Pete were indeed having it out on the console, and had their gazes fixed on the TV. Leena did a double-take as she met Myka’s eyes, then her eyes widened and she jumped up and rushed over, catching Myka in a hug she had not expected. 

“Thank goodness you’re safe,” Leena whispered. “I was so worried.”

Myka gaped at her for a moment before she caught herself. Auras. Of course Leena knew who she was talking to, and that it wasn’t the same Myka she’d been talking to yesterday, but that meant-

And then Claudia tackle-hugged her, and made Myka stumble into Helena, who supported both of them with a soft ‘oof’, and then Pete joined the party, wrapping his arms around all four of them as much as he could. 

“Group hug!” he shouted, and “It’s Baby Myka!” and other such nonsense, and the second time he tried the ‘Baby Myka’ line, she punched his arm.

“Ow!” he shouted, and then hugged her again, laughing at the expression on her face. “So, Five-Years-Ago Myka, then? F-Y-A… Myka on fiyaaaah!” 

She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help laughing; it was either that or give in to the tears that threatened all over again. “How do you know?” she asked, after things had subsided a little.

“Leena, obviously,” Claudia said, grinning at the innkeeper, “but Myka clued us in day before yesterday. The other Myka, I mean.”

“She did?” Helena sounded astonished; Myka was glad she wasn’t the only one surprised by this. 

Pete nodded. “Pretty awesome, am I right, partner?” he asked Myka. “It’s like a Christmas movie or something, only it’s summer.”

Myka’s stomach growled, saving her having to come up with a reply. 

“Oh!” Leena said, “I’ve got some lasagna I can heat up for you.”

“You do?” Pete sounded betrayed, going so far as to shake his fist at the retreating figure. “You never told me there was lasagna left!”

“Shut up, Pete, this is for the Sykes Vanquisher,” Claudia said. 

Myka shuddered. “You did get him, then?” she asked.

Both Pete and Claudia gaped at Helena. “Dude,” Claudia said, finding her voice first, “you haven’t told her?!”

“It hasn’t come up,” Helena shrugged.

“Hey _hey_ hey,” Pete sang, pointing finger guns at her and Myka.

Myka rolled her eyes and swatted at his hands. “It has not come up,” she repeated, enunciating each word clearly. Let him make of that what he wanted; she herself was a bit appalled that she hadn’t even thought to ask.

“Uh, yeah we did get him,” Claudia said, walking over to the couch and plopping down. “He, Diamond and Struhl were getting on a plane; Helena tesla’d the crap out of the engine and grounded them, and then-” she suddenly snapped her mouth shut. “Probably not the best topic right before food,” she said quietly. 

Myka shook her head. “Claud, tell me. Please.”

Claudia exchanged a nervous look with Pete and Helena, who pulled Myka over to the big couch and then sat down on either side of her. 

“He, uh, said something,” Claudia went on, in much more somber tones than earlier. “To Helena. Clocked her as an Omega straight away somehow, tried to taunt her about you. Said she better run to the hangar, not waste her time with him. Said that-” she stopped and gritted her teeth. Helena was holding on to Myka’s hand with a very, very tight grip. “Said that she might still,” Claudia went on in barely more than a whisper, “get there in time.”

“I ran, at that,” Helena said, equally quietly. “Ran like I’d never run before. I’d known that something was wrong; don’t ask me how. I knew where to go, and I couldn’t tell you how I knew that, either. You-” she broke off, her hand now crushing Myka’s fingers.

“You were dead, Mykes,” Pete said softly on Myka’s other side. He cleared his throat and continued in a much louder, stronger voice. “But then you got better, so all’s good.”

Leena arrived with a tray and on it, a plate covered with a microwave cover. “Seriously?” she said. “You’re telling her _that_ right before lunch?”

“That’s what I said,” Claudia protested, “but she wanted to know!”

Leena rolled her eyes and set the tray down on Myka’s lap. “Enjoy, then,” she said, “and I know that sounded sarcastic, but I mean it.” She removed the cover, and the scent of homemade lasagna wafted up to Myka’s nostrils and made her salivate.

She dug in, and was dimly aware of Helena and Claudia staring first at her, then at each other in disbelief. She decided to ignore them; this was too delicious to care.

“Sykes?” she asked between bites. 

“In prison for life on six counts of murder,” Pete said. “I think H.G. would have killed him with her bare hands if she’d gotten the chance, so maybe it’s good for him he’s behind bars. Diamond was dead already anyway; Sykes had reanimated him with a metronome, the creepy bastard. So we just stopped that bullshit and left him to rot. And Struhl – he’s an idiot nerd who was in way over his head; I think he’s still doing time but probably not for much longer. Haven’t really kept track.”

“I have,” Claudia said darkly. “Five more months, and then let him try to ever find a job again.”

Myka let her fork sink. “Don’t,” she said. 

“Huh?” Claudia stared at her. “Are you for real?”

“He didn’t kill me,” Myka said with a shrug. “Pete’s right; the kid didn’t really know how to get out of the mess he was in; pretty sure he’d have been the next to die. Leave him be. If he can’t find a job, he’ll turn to crime and we won’t have won anything.”

Claudia blinked. “Okay?” she said. “I mean, I kinda get it; love thy neighbor and whatnot, but… wow. Okay. Your call.”

“Well, then, leave him alone,” Myka repeated, stabbing her fork in the air in emphasis. “Keep an eye on him if you like; see if he gets up to more of the same, but if he doesn’t, just leave him alone.”

Claudia nodded. “Okie-dokes,” she said.

Myka finished the lasagna and put the tray on the coffee table. “That was amazing,” she told Leena. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Leena smiled at her. 

They played board games after that, and Myka found herself relaxing, again but in a different way, into the company of the people she liked best. She had rotten luck with the dice during Trivial Pursuit, but since she beat Helena anyway – even if only by one slice of cake – she didn’t care. Catan went slightly better, although trying to bluff Leena when trading for resources was always pointless. In the end, though, she found herself not really caring about that, either. She was in good company, and that was what mattered. Pete still made the worst kind of dad jokes, Claudia and Helena had more in-jokes than ever, Leena was the quiet hub around which their conversations revolved, and Myka realized that she was happy here.

That it wasn’t just that Leena was easy to be around, or that Pete always had her back, or that she could mentor Claudia and help her be a good agent – but that she had a place here, a place where she wasn’t just part of a team, but among friends.

It was a major shift in perspective, and it took Myka utterly by surprise. Leena looked up sharply as it happened, met Myka’s eyes, looked at her for a moment with her own eyes slightly out of focus, and then gave Myka the most brilliant smile she’d ever seen on Leena’s face. It fractured into rainbows suddenly, and for a moment Myka thought that _she_ was seeing auras now, too, until she realized that she was fucking well tearing up again. 

If anyone noticed, they didn’t say. 

Artie joined them for dinner. He took one look at Myka as he came in, then nodded at her, even smiled. “Glad you’re here,” he said. “Really glad you’re here.” His voice was softer than she’d ever heard him speak, and, almost predictably at this point, her tear ducts opened again. 

Through it all, Helena was at her side, never moving further away than a few inches, maybe a foot. And Pete didn’t make a single ‘joined at the hip’ joke, nor did Claudia. 

It felt more than right, to have Helena so close so constantly. And it felt more than good to feel her touch, fleeting usually, on Myka’s upper arm, or shoulder, or, once, on the small of her back. Innocent touches all, but Myka found herself thinking not-so-innocent thoughts. She had never allowed herself to think them, but… well, wasn’t that why she was here? To explore this possibility?

And as she wondered if Helena would be amenable to that kind of thing at all, with Myka being not really the Myka that Helena had grown accustomed to, Helena caught her gaze and blushed furiously at what she saw in it. 

Her touches did get a tad less innocent at that point, and Myka had her answer.

After dinner, Myka made their excuses, and, okay, Pete _did_ crack a joke at that, but he wouldn’t have been Pete if he hadn’t, so Myka let it slide with only a minor poke to his biceps. 

And then she and Helena were alone again, closing the door to their apartment behind them which, interestingly, shut off any noise from the B&B. Myka tested it, opening and shutting the door a few times; it seemed too flimsy for that kind of sound proofing, but then a lot of things weren’t what they seemed in the B&B, she argued. She looked around to where Helena had gone, and found her smiling, leaning against the bedroom door. 

“Testing a hypothesis?” Helena asked. 

Myka shrugged, and stepped away from the door. “Not really,” she said, “just curious. So this place is sound-proof, then?” she asked, all innocent interest. 

Helena looked at her quizzically. Then her eyes widened. “Yes,” she said, and it came out hoarse. She cleared her throat. “It is.”

“Good,” Myka said. She advanced towards Helena but found herself stopping, suddenly, bashful and unsure.

Helena caught onto it immediately. “Something wrong?” she asked.

“I… I’m not sure how to do this,” Myka admitted. “I, uh… Outside of, uh, you know. Those three days? Apart from that, I’ve never…” She fell silent, hoping that her blush would speak for itself; it felt loud enough.

Helena blinked. “…ah,” she said eventually. “Yes. I’d forgotten about that.” Her smile was fond as she added, “I suppose I got a bit carried away. Don’t worry.” She reached out a hand to Myka. “We’ve been through this before. It is not a problem. If you want to continue, that is. If not, that is also not a problem; we’ll simply retire in that case.”

“No!” Myka said quickly, taking Helena’s hand. “No, I… I do want to. I… I hadn’t even realized you’d know; of course you know.” She shook her head at herself and laughed. “Well, I guess I brought the awkward to the awkward first time, then.”

Helena tugged at Myka’s hand, pulling her into her personal space. “Then that’s over with now,” she said in a low voice and ran her other hand up Myka’s arm, “and that’s just as well.” 

Her fingers arrived at the nape of Myka’s neck and urged Myka forward; the kiss that followed was a first in many ways, and yet it also felt as though Myka had been doing this a million times, and as odd and fascinating as it was to think of both of these as being true at the same time, Myka found that she didn’t want to think about odd and fascinating temporal concepts at this point. At all. 


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sexytimes between our ladies! (Happy Bering & Wells Day!) (Just remember that in this fic, one of our ladies has a cock. Just-in-case reminder.)

Helena tasted of the strawberries they’d had for dessert, and oh how Myka had stared at every single one of the red fruits as they made their way to those slender, clever lips and between those small, white teeth. And just like the strawberries had gone, her tongue now went and followed them, finding remnants of their flavor in the corner of Helena’s lips and on the tip of Helena’s tongue. 

She found a balance, as she kissed Helena, of listening to her body’s muscle memory and discovering things on her own, of doing what seemed like a good idea at the time without asking too closely why.

Helena moaned and molded herself against Myka as they kissed, running her hands up Myka’s back and up around her shoulders, raking her fingernails over Myka’s t-shirt and sending shivers down Myka’s arms. Myka pressed into her, pushed her into the bedroom door, her hands on Helena’s hips pulling them towards her, towards the pulsing bulge that had started to grow the moment they had started this. 

It didn’t feel off. She could feel her cock, could feel it harden, and it felt – okay? Myka didn’t know if that was just this body’s reaction, if the Myka she was replacing had made her peace with her equipment, if every time that Myka had sex felt that way – if so, she envied her. Or maybe it was Helena, who from the very beginning had expressed nothing but delight and appreciation over Myka’s body, over all of it, and who was certainly appreciating it now, pushing into their kiss, into Myka’s bulge. 

Myka groaned into their kiss as Helena ground her hips together, and felt Helena tremble and drop a little as her knees buckled for a moment. Myka ran her hands lower, hovering over Helena’s butt cheeks, hesitating for a moment with worry if that was at all okay – if she was okay, if Helena was okay, if the cock between them was an okay thing to have. But then Helena was groaning into Myka’s mouth, hanging off her shoulders more than she was standing on her feet, and Myka let go of her doubts and leaned down to fully grab Helena’s ass and take on her weight. Helena’s head fell back against the door with a throaty exhalation, and Myka took advantage of the neck thus presented, kissing down Helena’s jaw and the tendon in her neck until she arrived at the pulse point and the glands next to it, blessedly inactive now thanks to the suppressant. Nevertheless, she knew it was a tender spot for most; certainly for herself, so she kissed the skin there gently, reverentially, until Helena’s fingers closed around the back of Myka’s head and pushed her closer.

Myka kissed the spot more thoroughly; then, on a whim, she raked her teeth across Helena’s trapezius, with astounding results; Helena let out a moan so loud, so wanton, that it startled a laugh out of Myka. “We should probably take this inside,” she said, surprised at how breathless she sounded.

“No,” Helena said, sounding equally out of breath. “No, here, now. Please.” Her words did things to Myka that Myka felt she had no hope of comprehending. Helena detached herself and Myka groaned; Helena kissed her and said, “Just a moment, love,” and was through the door and then back, out of jeans and panties, and with a condom in her hand.

Myka roughly pushed her own pants down and put the condom on with no kind of finesse or grace at all. For a moment, face to face with her cock, she hesitated – but then she looked back up, and Helena’s eyes were hungry, and Myka was barely done when Helena was kissing her again, deeply, avidly, doing things with her tongue that made Myka growl. 

She knew that her shoulders and hips were pushing Helena into the door, that her whole body was leaning into Helena now, slightly robbing her of breath – but she also knew that Helena liked it, that she didn’t need to worry. She cupped her hands around Helena’s butt again and lifted her easily, and groaned as Helena’s legs came up behind her back and Helena’s center slid across the length of her cock.

“Is this okay?” she asked hoarsely. “Do you need any prep?”

Helena laughed breathlessly and shook her head. She grabbed Myka’s cock and lined it up with her entrance, and Myka could feel how slick she was already. “Please,” she said again, dark and urgent.

Myka nodded, and lowered Helena, steadily and carefully, sliding into her in one long, slow movement. Helena let out another one of those drawn-out, low, heartfelt groans, and shuddered as her body adjusted to being filled.

Myka paused for a moment to savor the sensation. Helena’s ankles were crossed behind the small of Myka’s back, her arms slung around Myka’s neck, her forehead resting against the bridge of Myka’s nose. Myka could feel the door’s cool smoothness on the backs of her wrists as she held Helena to her, could smell the scent of Helena’s arousal in her nostrils, could sense the hot, tight wetness around her cock – it was incredible. It was right. It wasn’t quite the euphoria she remembered from their first time, but that had been heat sex and this wasn’t, so that was probably to be expected. And it was far from dysphoria too, so that was okay; more than okay. It was right. Just as it was, it was right, it felt good, it felt amazing. Myka gave a soft little laugh and a wondering shake of her head. 

“Are you alright?” Helena asked – of course she’d noticed the pause.

Myka nodded. “Waiting to see if it would feel weird,” she said, “but it doesn’t. And that’s weird in and of itself, but… I think I’m just gonna roll with it? Like, who am I to question a good thing?”

“Indeed,” Helena replied. She leaned into Myka and kissed her cheek. “I’m glad,” she said simply. 

Myka chuckled. “Oh, me too,” she said fervently. “Trust me, me too.” Then she leaned her shoulders forwards to pin Helena against the door again, and Helena keened in the back of her throat, and brought her hands to Myka’s head, digging into her curls to pull her into the most wanton kiss Myka had experienced outside their three days in the Warehouse. 

Slowly, purposefully, Myka pushed into Helena. The door creaked slightly as it took their weight; Helena stopped their kiss and panted into Myka’s mouth. Her breath tasted sweet, of strawberries, and it felt to Myka like the height of intimacy to inhale her exhalation. Myka, for her part, fought to keep her cool; she felt ready to come right there and then – just a regular orgasm, mind, not knotting. And since she wasn’t knotting, Helena probably needed more stimulation to get off, right?

But Myka didn’t have a hand to spare, holding Helena as she was.

And then it came to her. “Touch yourself,” she said, and her voice was low and raw and Helena shuddered and for a moment, Myka was worried that it might have been a bad call, but then Helena kissed her almost furiously before detaching one hand and reaching between their bodies.

Myka knew the exact moment when that hand connected; Helena curled in on herself with a shuddered exhalation, and her cunt tightened around Myka’s cock. Myka picked up her pace, trying to match the contractions, and Helena’s hand started to move in the same rhythm; the fingers of her other hand arched and dug into the flesh of Myka’s shoulder, and then she cried out and shook in Myka’s arms as she came apart. Her cunt spasmed around Myka’s cock and brought Myka over the brim too – Myka flung up one arm to push against the door as her knees threatened to buckle. 

Helena wordlessly detached one hand and fumbled behind her, and if Myka hadn’t remembered to straighten up and catch their weight, they’d have fallen backwards as the door opened behind them. Myka hoisted Helena more securely onto her hips and they both groaned at the friction. Myka could have resumed matters there and then, upright against the other side of the door this time, but the bed was right there, and she remembered how soft it was. 

She shuffled towards it a bit awkwardly, what with her pants around her ankles, then she sat Helena down with care. “I’m gonna pull out, okay?” she asked, and Helena nodded and uncrossed her ankles. She hissed as Myka slid out of her. “You okay?” Myka asked.

Helena nodded again, then laughed. “I do love wall sex,” she said, “or door, as the case might be.” 

Myka chuckled as she sat on the edge of the bed to remove the condom and knot it shut. “You got another, I hope,” she said, and then blinked as she remembered. But she couldn’t very well bring _that_ up _now_ , could she? Helena had pretty obviously not gotten pregnant, back then. Or since. 

“What is it?” Helena asked, sounding concerned. She sat up and moved to sit next to Myka. “Myka, what’s wrong?”

Myka shook her head and was about to say nothing – but then she stopped herself. It wasn’t as if she had a lot of time, and she really had been putting this off too long, hadn’t she? “I was thinking back to… to those three days,” she said. “And that I never used a condom then. And that I never talked with you about it, even though I knew I should.”

“Ah.” Helena nodded, and ran her arm around Myka’s shoulders. “Well, as for the condom matter itself, Doctor Calder gave me a pill to prevent any potentially fertilized ovum from implanting. As for not talking about it, we both have our fair share of topics we’ve dodged over those first few months. I could have started a conversation with you at any point too, after all, and I did not.” Her hand squeezed Myka’s arm. “Do not worry about it, love, alright?”

Myka took a deep breath. “I… okay. I’ll try.” She met Helena’s eyes with every ounce of honesty she was capable of. “I am sorry, though,” she added.

Helena smiled at her, a one-corner, gentle, loving affair. “As am I.”

Myka wrinkled her brow. “You don’t-” she began, but Helena’s hand on her mouth stopped her. 

“As I said – my fault just as much,” Helena said. “And that, if I’m quite honest, is as far as I want to delve into this matter right now. There are other things I would much rather do.” She removed her hand and kissed Myka’s lips. “Don’t you agree?”

Myka looked at her for a moment, then nodded. If that was how Helena felt about it, she could accommodate that. And, yes, she did agree. Wholeheartedly, joyously agree. Her cock, which had softened in the meantime, began to stiffen again. 

Helena gazed down at it with a smirk. “Well,” she said, “is that an invitation?”

Myka had barely nodded when Helena bent down and took the tip of her cook into her mouth. “Fuck,” she burst out. Helena’s cunt had felt amazing, but her mouth? And then Helena licked across her glans, and Myka huffed out a ‘whoa’, and Helena straightened again, chuckling slightly. 

“Do I have the honor of being the first?” she asked. 

Myka nodded wordlessly. Then she shrugged and amended, “I mean, as far as _I_ am concerned. Your… um, _your_ Myka – probably not, yeah? I mean you’ve done that with her, right?”

Helena nodded. “Still, though,” she said. “You are not her, so I think it is fair to count this as your first time. Why don’t we get out of the rest of our clothes, though, and get comfortable before I resume?” 

Myka was happy to oblige, slipping out of her pants and undies in moments, and divesting herself of her uppers just as quickly. She turned back to Helena and stopped to gasp.

Helena was kneeling on the bed, in the middle of removing her bra. Her hair was delightfully mussed, her limbs lean and muscular, her skin flecked with freckles just as Myka remembered, her little triangle of pubic hair curly and damp. With both hands unselfconsciously busy behind her back, her breasts were arched towards Myka, held in satiny fabric that was blood red against the paleness of her chest. 

If Myka ever cherished her eidetic memory, it was now – she knew she would never forget this image; would fight Mrs. Frederic or whoever tooth and claw to be allowed to keep it. 

As if alerted by Myka’s sudden stillness, Helena looked around, one eyebrow high. Then her face softened as she took in how smitten Myka was. She leaned forwards and planted a kiss on Myka’s lips. “You are so beautiful,” she whispered then.

Myka was thunderstruck. “ _Me?”_

Helena laughed softly and kissed Myka again. “Yes, you,” she said. “Your beauty takes my breath away every time I look at you.” Her fingers played with Myka’s hair as she looked at it fondly. “Your hair never fails to catch my eye,” she said. “So vivacious; so indomitable. Your eyes,” she met Myka’s gaze openly and ran a finger across Myka’s brow, “so hard to read, unless one knows you, and I’m honored and glad that I do. Your mouth, your smile – oh, Myka, your smile and your laughter light up my world, you _must_ know that.” Her finger felt almost hypnotic on Myka’s skin as it traced her lips. “Your body, my beloved, is perfect – it is you, your vessel, and you use it so well, in so many ways.” Helena’s finger ran down Myka’s chest, curved around a nipple, then ran further down and found her cock, which twitched almost painfully. “I know by now how hard-won it is, and I am in awe of your mastery of it. Most of all, though,” she said, bringing her hand up to cup Myka’s cheek, “your soul – Myka, you yourself are beautiful beyond mere physicality. And though you may disagree, I stand by it. You are beautiful to me.”

Myka had no idea what to say to that. She realized her mouth was standing open, and snapped it closed. 

Helena laughed quietly, and kissed her cheek. “Thank you,” she said.

“What for?” Myka asked, now utterly confused. 

“For not protesting,” Helena said with a wink. This time, she kissed Myka on the lips – softly at first, but it escalated quickly, until they both were breathing hard and Myka had lost every train of thought she might have had. 

“Condom,” she panted, mindful of how hard her cock was again. 

Helena hummed. “Not just yet,” she said, and gave Myka’s shoulders a little push.

Myka sank onto the bed obediently. “But-” she said, trying to hang on to responsibility.

“I’ll take care of it in a moment,” Helena said, kneeling down at Myka’s side. “I promise.” She did take a handful of condoms out of the bedside table’s top drawer, dropping them unceremoniously among the pillows. “There. Easy access, not to worry. Now please,” she looked down at Myka with a sultry smile, “please relax, alright?”

Myka almost whimpered. Helena had had to reach across her to get at the bedside table, and that had presented Myka with all kinds of visuals and ideas and-

Helena’s lips closed around her cock again, and Myka let out a breathy exclamation. Helena sucked, gently, and still it felt like almost too much; her tongue swirled around Myka’s glans, then her lips retreated, and she finished with a small, almost innocent kiss to the very tip. “How does that feel?” she asked Myka.

Myka felt like laughing helplessly – her blood was anywhere but in her brain; she had no hope of answering that question. “Good?” she tried. 

Helena gave a pleased little hum. “Excellent,” she said, and bent down again.

Myka had very little idea about how exactly she survived the next however many minutes without exploding. It wasn’t until Helena licked around the base of her cock that she realized what, precisely, Helena was touching. 

Myka was about to knot. “I’m-” she began, trying to tell Helena as much. 

“I know, love,” Helena said, her voice as low as Myka had ever heard it. “I know.” Helena took one of the condoms and quickly put it on Myka’s cock, rolling down the length of it with sure fingers. “I know exactly what I’m doing; trust me.” And she straddled Myka and, with agonizing slowness, began to lower herself.

Myka could see how Helena’s thighs strained with the motion – more, though, she could see how incredibly wet Helena was. Fluid was glistening on her skin halfway down to her knees, and her groan as she speared herself onto Myka’s cock was utterly uninhibited. 

The base of Myka’s cock was pulsing, growing, and Helena hit it at precisely the moment when it started to bulge out in earnest. It slid into her with ease, and then expanded with a final pulsing lurch, stretching her to her full capacity and anchoring her to Myka.

“This feels so good,” she panted, and Myka’s eyes grew round. It felt good to _Helena?_ Fuck, it felt _divine_ to Myka. She had never, not once, felt like this and not been in heat, not been fully master of her senses and thoughts. Helena was tight around her, so tight that Myka could feel Helena’s pulse beat against her knot, which responded with its own palpitations, pulsing as Helena’s cunt welcomed it. Further up her cock, she could feel every inch of Helena’s insides envelop her, could feel little preliminary trembles run up and down it as they both adjusted for what was about to come – but how? 

Myka suddenly found herself at a loss; she knew how to get herself off in this state, but she was locked within Helena now, there would be no stroking up and down to reach orgasm.

And then Helena said, “Touch me,” and leaned back to open herself up to Myka, catching her weight on her arms as her head fell back.

Myka hissed as the change in Helena’s posture impacted on the angle of her cock inside Helena, grinding it into the other woman’s walls in a new way. Her hand trembled slightly as she brought her thumb to Helena’s clit. Muscle memory told her to press down above it, to draw circles in the slickness of Helena’s folds without quite touching, so she did. Helena groaned out a sibilant ‘yes’; her walls tensed and relaxed to the rhythm of Myka’s thumb, and then she began to gyrate her hips and Myka’s brain stuttered to a halt at the sensation. She let her hand do what it wanted, and seemed to be doing okay with that, because a moment later, Helena let out a yell and started coming. Her cunt clamped tightly around Myka’s cock and then started milking it, honest-to-fuck milking it, and Myka couldn’t help but shout out as she came apart.


	18. Chapter 18

They woke, a few hours later, tangled within each other again. The room reeked of sex, in the best kind of way, and it made them horny all over again, and the stack of condoms Helena had taken out of the bedside table was running seriously low. 

When Myka pointed that out, Helena laughed and opened that self-same drawer, and showed Myka how packed it was. 

Myka found herself flushing profusely at the implication for their sex life. “All without pheromones?” she marveled.

Helena nodded. “We promised it to each other,” she said. “We both felt that it was important for us to know each other, to make sure we loved each other, before taking the plunge of Alpha-Omega sex, or of bonding. As you can see, it wasn’t that much of a hardship.” She was lying in the crook of Myka’s arm, running her cool fingers around Myka’s nipple in very delicious circles. 

Myka hummed her agreement. “But you are sure of it by now,” she said then, “aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” Helena replied immediately. “We wanted to wait for this, though.”

“You what?” Myka raised herself on one arm to look Helena in the eyes. “You… Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Helena asked back. “If we – she and I – were bonded, you would be in a body right now that couldn’t help but respond to me. That is precisely what we didn’t want.”

“Yeah, but-” Myka spluttered. “Five years!”

Helena chuckled. She bent forwards and lightly nipped at the side of Myka’s breast, eliciting a sharp intake of breath. “Like I said,” Helena breathed, “not much of a hardship.”

Myka tried to wrap her head around that. “I… suppose it makes sense,” she said finally. Then, pursing her lips, she asked the other question that had been bugging her. “And… and no dysphoria, either?”

“I wish I could tell you that was the case, for your sake and hers,” Helena sighed, “but no – there were occasions of that, and not just a few; especially in the beginning. Even now, but far more rarely.”

“Sorry,” Myka said, feeling a blush rise in her cheeks.

“Absolutely nothing to be sorry for,” Helena said, shaking her head. “Myka, we are partners in this. We take each other into account; body, mind and soul. If one of us doesn’t feel at ease with what we’re doing, we stop and figure it out. Find something else to do that pleases us both, or stop altogether. That applies to your dysphoria as well as to myself suddenly being unable to go on; and trust me, there have been plenty of occasions of _that_ , too. Frankly, I don’t think either will ever fully stop – but then this,” she gestured at their naked bodies, “isn’t the be-all and end-all of relationships; this,” she put her hand over Myka’s heart, “is. And this,” she tapped her fingers on Myka’s forehead. For once, they felt warm. “What we feel of each other, how we live with each other, is about far more than just sex.”

It was Helena who now raised herself on her arm now, to meet Myka’s eyes. “You see, Myka, this is what I want. You and me, consciously choosing each other, every day. Mind over matter, yes, but also hearts over minds. Because that was – is, one of the choices for us. Had either of us followed our minds instead of our hearts, we would not be here. We were, both of us, much to scared to dare it, despite the rightness or maybe because of the rightness we both felt whenever we touched.”

Myka nodded. She for sure had been scared of that. “Speaking of,” she said, frowning a little. “Have you ever talked about or found out why that is?”

Helena took a deep breath and settled back into the crook of Myka’s arm again. “Depending on who you ask,” she said, “it’s either a remarkable compatibility of pheromones – not the Alpha and Omega kind, but just general human pheromones. Or we were lovers in an earlier life, or parallel universe. Or it’s karma. Soulmates.” She snorted softly. “I don’t hold much truck with any of these,” she went on, “but I do find myself wondering, every now and then.” The fingers she was running across Myka’s chest now were soothing rather than enticing, but Myka was fine with that, considering the topic. “I was born more than a century apart from you,” Helena said softly, as if to herself. “I was an outcast for more than half of my life, simply for holding out for what I believed in. And that belief sent me into the bronze, forced a hundred and thirteen years of torment on me – but it also released me into your arms. I have never, in my entire life, met someone like you. Was I waiting for you all that time? Were we destined to meet? I cannot deny that my life brought me here somehow, even if I am loath to ascribe purpose to entropy. Yet here we are, and I have never been happier.” She laid her hand flat on Myka’s chest, right over her heart, and raised herself to kiss Myka’s lips. “I find myself without the need to look into the why of our rightness too closely. Maybe that will change and I will want to know more, five more years hence, or tomorrow; who knows. For now, though, I am content to simply enjoy it, and the peace it brings me.”

Myka’s throat had run dry even as her eyes were starting to brim. She had no idea what on Earth to say to that, and contented herself with pulling Helena close. 

“I never thought I would find someone who held the same beliefs as I did,” Helena went on, into Myka’s neck. Her voice was thick with tears, too. 

“Me either,” Myka brought out. The lump in her chest was back with a vengeance, and she held on to Helena in the knowledge that Helena was the best remedy against it. “I…” She fell silent. There was something she wanted to know but couldn’t even bring her thoughts to wrap into words. Something she’d been wondering since she was a child that her mother turned away from. 

“What is it?” Helena asked. She’d raised herself and was cupping Myka’s cheek. “Myka, what’s wrong?”

“What does love feel like?” The question burst out of Myka, bitter and artless.

Helena’s eyes grew dark and liquid, and she started pressing kisses onto Myka’s face. “Oh, my beloved,” she sighed. “Oh, my sweet, my darling Myka.” 

“Did she ask you that, too?” Myka couldn’t have held back that question just as little as the other one.

“Yes, my love,” Helena said quietly. “Yes, she did.”

“What did you say?”

Helena was silent for a while. 

“Helena, what did you say?” Myka was crying now but she didn’t care. She needed to know. 

“I told her I did not know all that much, myself,” Helena replied with another sigh. “I said that I could tell her what I felt for her, and she could see if that in any way mirrored her emotions. And so I am asking you now, Myka, to do the same. Tell me what you feel; just tell me.”

Myka gave a sob, and buried her face in Helena’s hair. “I…” she began, and fell silent again. “I don’t know,” she whispered. 

“Oh, you do,” Helena said in reply. “You do. It’s hard to wrap into words when you’ve never done so before, but you know your own mind, you know your own feelings. Try,” she coaxed. “Give it a go.”

“I… am a bit afraid what it will sound like,” Myka said hesitantly. “That it’ll be… I don’t know. Weird. Inadequate. You- you’re an author, you’re good with words; I am not.”

Helena looked at her intently. “Do not,” she said, “worry about that. Your words are precious to me, always.”

Myka pressed her lips together. “I want to be with you,” she said, getting the words out there before she could think better of it. “I want to protect you, and I know you don’t need it, but I just… I just want to make sure you’re okay, I want to make you… make you happy. I like your laugh, too,” she added, blushing as she repeated what Helena had told her the night before, only with a lot less sophistication. 

Helena nodded. “Those are all actions,” she said with a small smile. “Very much in character, of course, but except for the last one, they’re not emotions. You like my smile – that is something you feel about me. What else is in your heart?”

Myka felt helpless. “I feel helpless,” she said, suddenly realizing that that was an emotion too. Right? “I… I want… I want you.” That was one, too, wasn’t it? “Not… not _just_ , I mean, not just this way,” she gestured down their naked, intertwined bodies. “I… want…” it took her breath away how much she wanted, how much she yearned, for something she could for the life of her not find words for. “You,” she finished, feeling utterly inadequate. “With me. Us, together. This.” She gestured around the room. “I want this, so much I can’t breathe. And I’m afraid to mess it up,” she added, because that was an emotion, she was sure of that. “I have no idea how to do this, how to get here, and the thought that I’ll lose most of what I’m learning here makes me- makes me faint, Helena, I don’t know if I can do it without that, I-”

A kiss, tender and cool as a butterfly’s wing, stopped her. “You can,” Helena said. “You already have. Remember, that is why you’re here. To find trust in that. Trust in yourself, that you’ll be able to pull this off, trust in this, in that it is worth attempting.”

“Is it?” The question was out before Myka could stop it – she needed to hear Helena answer it.

“What do _you_ think?”

Myka could have wailed. She did sob. “I don’t know,” she whispered. 

“That’s not true,” Helena said, quiet and gentle but also very firm.

“What? Why?”

“Beloved, you _know_. You _do_ ,” Helena said. “You said it yourself: you want this. That means you know it is worth attempting. You want me to tell you that it is, but this is a truth you can only discover in your own heart, not be told from outside.”

“But you are in my heart,” Myka said, feeling confused. Why was Helena refusing her? 

“Say again?” Helena asked with a peculiar expression on her face. 

“You-” Myka’s eyes grew round. “You are in my heart,” she whispered. Her breaths were shallow, soft, as if she was stalking something that would escape her if she even _thought_ too loudly. “You are in my heart.” The thought grew in enormity every time she thought it. Her face worked as she tried to comprehend it. 

“I am,” Helena replied, low and fervently, “and you in mine, and give me hope.” She smiled, and it shook loose a tear from the corner of her eye. “That was the way in which my heart was frozen over – I had lost hope, and you returned it to me. It hurt me just as much as you hurt yesterday; you held me as I held you yesterday – Myka, we are in each other’s hearts, and you heal me and soothe me as much as I you.”

Myka sobbed again, and pulled Helena towards her; she needed to hold and be held, and Helena obliged. The world could have burned to its demise around them, Myka didn’t care – all she wanted was right here. And she could have it – she already did. She was allowed; she was wanted, she was trusted, she had made this work and she would make this work. The thought was almost too large to grasp; holding it in her heart made her feel like she didn’t have enough space in her chest left to draw breath, but here was Helena, wrapped around her and holding her together, and she had hurt the same way and Myka had held her together – the other Myka, sure, but a Myka, her own future self. She had done it and she would do it; she knew this now. 

She took a deep, shuddering breath. She felt changed. Calm and relaxed – no longer as though this was someone else’s state of mind, but on her own. She could do this and she would – the thought that had seemed too large to think now settled into her, like a deep pool of reassurance. 

Helena raised herself up and nodded. Her cheeks were wet but her eyes were dry and clear. “Now you know,” she said with a smile that, small though it was, shone with-

With love. 

Myka could see it now, and it took her breath away, and it made love rise within her like a wave coming from that deep, deep pool, suffusing her very being. “I love you,” she said.

Helena nodded. “I can see it,” she said. “And I love you, too.”

Myka took a deep breath. “I think,” she said, “it is time.”

Helena gave a soft chuckle. “So soon?” she asked.

Myka bit her lip. “If I don’t go now,” she said, “I might not want to leave. And I… I haven’t earned this yet; you were right about that.”

Helena hummed, leaned forward, and pressed a kiss on Myka’s lips – very much a kiss goodbye, an ending, at least for now. “Do not forget what you learned,” she said.

“I won’t.” Myka reached out and pushed Helena’s hair back behind her ear, then cupped her cheek. “I love you,” she said again, and it came from deep within her.

“And I, you,” Helena replied. “Fare well until we meet again, beloved.” Her smile grew even more brilliant, outshining the sun, until things dissolved into whiteness again.


	19. Chapter 19

Myka choked. Something was stuck in her throat; she heaved. She fell sideways off of whatever she’d been sitting on, and there were cries of alarm around her, from voices she knew.

“Mykes!”

“Myka!”

“Give her space, guys, stand back!”

She choked again – whatever it was was big and slimy and seemed to _want_ to come up; it hurt, it felt wrong-

It came out, finally, hit the floor with a flat ‘splat’. Her shoulders trembled, and someone was holding her head, wiping her mouth, stroking her back. She leaned into the touch, because it was right.

“I thought you were dead,” a raspy voice said close to her ear. “You _were dead;_ I felt no pulse – how? _How_ are you back with me?”

Myka moved her lips, blinked her eyes, took a breath. Maybe not the best order of things, but it’d do. “Bezoar,” she whispered. “Ibn Zuhr’s Bezoar.” She coughed; her throat still hurt abominably, but it beat the alternative, didn’t it?

She was alive. 

“Sykes,” she said then, and tried to sit up. Arms around her shoulders held her back. 

“All handled, Mykes,” Pete said from a few feet away. “All good, thanks to you. Don’t worry, partner. Relax, okay? All good.”

Myka swallowed and winced. “Anyone got some water?” she asked.

“Back in the car,” Claudia said. “I’ll go get it. Gimme a sec.”

Myka leaned back again, into the person who was holding her, content to stay there for a moment to collect herself. 

“Okay,” Claudia announced a few moments later, “here we are. Go slow, okay? Don’t choke now, would be really anti-climactic.”

The opening of a bottle touched Myka’s lips and she opened them greedily. The water was cool as it trickled down her throat, and if some of it trickled down her chin, she didn’t mind – she was alive and here to feel it, and that beat the alternative.

Claudia tilted the bottle down, and Myka sighed and blinked. 

The room around her came into focus; Pete leaning against a table, a chair in front of that that had fallen over – that she’d fallen out of. Claudia, kneeling in front of her with a look of thinly veiled worry in her eyes. Myka didn’t need to look behind her to know who was holding her up.

Claudia’s eyes widened as they fell onto something on the ground. “Urgh, Pete, get rid of that, will you?” she said.

Myka followed her gaze. On the floor in a puddle of bile and blood was a lump of dark red matter, like a bit of raw liver, about as large as her fist. She shook her head. “Neutralize it,” she said. “That’s the Bezoar. At least it’s in there somewhere.”

Claudia shuddered. “Dude, _that_ is _gross_.”

Myka shrugged. “Saved my life,” she said simply. 

Claudia blanched. “Fuck, man, I forgot about that. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry,” Myka told her. She took another deep breath and sat up, and this time the arms around her shoulders let her. “Can I have that bottle again?” she asked Claudia, and emptied it in one go. “Alright,” she said. “You said that everything is handled?” she asked Pete.

“Yep,” came the reply. 

“Then let’s go home,” Myka said.

-_-_-

Helena avoided looking her in the eyes the rest of the day and the day after, which Myka had kind of seen coming, but found hurtful nevertheless. Did she even care? She’d said she cared, but her behavior didn’t really corroborate that. Except when she’d held Myka right afterwards. What kind of sense did that make? What kind of sense was Myka to make of it?

While Helena avoided her gaze, though, she hung around Myka, close enough to be another kind of annoying. As if she was half-afraid that if she wasn’t around to take care of Myka, Myka would up and get herself killed again or something. She hovered just outside the room when Doctor Calder gave Myka her check-up; hovered just within earshot as Artie returned badge and gun to Myka; hovered and hovered and never made a move.

Myka didn’t even know what kind of move she _wanted_ the woman to make, but hovering was _not it_. 

And then, at the end of the second day, when Myka was sitting up in the B&B’s library, reading because she couldn’t sleep, she caught movement out of the corners of her eyes and found Helena standing in the doorway, and for the fraction of a second when their eyes met, Myka could see sheer bottomless unfathomable terror in the other woman’s eyes.

And up welled in her a knowledge so strong, so sure, that it filled her chest right to capacity: Helena was afraid to lose her. Not in the little-forlorn-boy way Pete had been, but in the very real, very visceral way of a mother who’d had her infant child taken from her at birth, and _that_ meant that she _did_ care, that Myka meant something to her, and that, in turn, meant that it was silly in the extreme to dance around each other like they did.

Helena gasped, and tried to retreat, but Myka was up and at the door in two quick strides, and had her by the wrist. “Please,” Myka said, and “come on,” and “haven’t you had enough of this?”

And then Helena was sitting on the same couch as her, unable to meet Myka’s eyes, worrying her fingers in her lap, and again something welled up in Myka – certainty. “Okay,” she said, “look. I don’t know what this is between us. I’ve tried my best to ignore it, and I’ve tried my best not to make you uncomfortable, not to be uncomfortable myself with what’s going on, but this is ridiculous. We’ve been avoiding this since day one – or day three I guess, and I have had it. I don’t mind that you did what you did when you were in the Bronze, okay? You had no way of controlling it, then I also went kinda out of control; it happened. And we’ve done _everything_ , since then, everything we could to make sure it didn’t happen again. That’s all any of us can do, isn’t it? But something got left over, and it’s still there whether we want it to or not. It’s pulling us together, I think, and I know you resent it for that, or maybe you resent _me_ for that, and I’m not really happy with it either, but…” she shook her head. “But maybe we’re just being too stubborn for our own good here. Maybe we’re cutting off our noses to spite our faces, you know what I mean?” She sighed, and ran her hand through her hair, and caught Helena following the motion with her eyes. 

Helena flushed crimson at being caught out, and Myka leaned forward and held out her hands – not touching Helena, but signaling her readiness to be touched, should Helena so choose. It felt like the biggest dare she’d ever taken, but certainty was still coursing through her, carrying her on. 

“Helena, I respect you. Deeply. Like, you’re intelligent, you’re incredibly well-read, you can fight, you know how to build things and repair things, you’re a good agent. Sure, sometimes you drive me up the wall, but I’m pretty sure I do that for you too, so I guess we’re even.”

She fell silent, unsure how to go on. She had an idea of where she wanted this to go, but not a clear one – just, different than the status quo; she knew that much.

“What…” Helena began. It came out in a croak, and she cleared her throat and began again. “What are you trying to say?”

Myka gave a deep, deep sigh and shrugged her shoulders. “You know, I’m not sure myself. But I know one thing.” She held out one hand a little further than the other, eyebrow up in challenge as she looked at Helena. With another furious blush, Helena took it.

They both felt the rightness of it, like a magnetic closure clicking into place. 

“We have this,” Myka said. “And I can’t think of it as something bad. No, fuck that – I know it’s good. And I don’t… I don’t mind how it came to be; not anymore. We both know we didn’t mean to overwhelm each other; we both know we won’t overwhelm each other again – from where I stand, it’s time to move on from that, okay?”

“Wh- where to?”

Again, Myka shrugged, grimacing. “I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve ever been in this situation before. All I know is that this is good.” She gently squeezed Helena’s hand and yes, it did feel good. Soothing. Calming. Relaxing. “And fuck it, our lives are full of crap sometimes, so when you find something that’s good, maybe… maybe hang on to it, yeah?”

Helena pressed her lips together tightly, and didn’t say a word.

“Hey,” Myka said, softening her voice. “Look, I’m not saying jump into bed with me. You know that, right? I hope? I mean you know me by now, yeah?”

Helena’s lips gave the tiniest of twitches upwards, her eyes the tiniest of rolls. 

“Good. Okay.” Myka settled her shoulders. “Also, I’m not going anywhere. I tried life outside the Warehouse; there’s no future in it.”

Helena’s mouth dropped open. 

“Too soon?” Myka asked, head tilted in her best Pete-fashion. 

“You-” Helena spluttered; outraged, incandescent almost. 

Myka grinned at her. “Come on, that was a good one. I don’t make jokes often; cherish them.”

“Perhaps it is better that way,” Helena said diffidently. She sniffed, but there it was again – the tiniest of twitches upwards; the tiniest of eye rolls. 

She had not withdrawn her hand. And when, a moment later, she went and then returned with a book for herself and settled in next to Myka, it was she who offered up her hand.


End file.
